Where No Fly Has Gone Before: Peacock Bass in the Brazilian Amazon

Amazon peacock bass fly fishing on Brazil’s Rio Marié takes anglers into one of the wildest  and most remote fisheries left on earth, where trophy peacock bass exceeding 20 pounds prowl blackwater lagoons deep inside the Amazon jungle. In this episode of the Destination Angler Podcast, Rodrigo Salles of Untamed Angling takes us into Indigenous lands, untouched waters, and a fishery where the next cast just might land somewhere no fly angler has ever cast before.

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There Are Still Places We Haven’t Fished

Think about this for a minute. In a world where you can pull up satellite imagery of practically any trout stream on your phone, Rodrigo Salles told me something that stopped me cold: there are rivers and lagoons in the Amazon where nobody has ever cast a fly. Not hardly anybody. Nobody.

“If there are any really untouched waters on this planet,” Rodrigo told me, “I bet you that it’s inside the Amazon jungle.”

That pretty much sets the stage for this episode. Rodrigo has spent more than 25 years exploring the Brazilian Amazon, searching for new fisheries and figuring out how to catch its remarkable fish on a fly. His crown jewel may be the Rio Marié, hundreds of miles of protected water running through Indigenous territory in the Rio Negro basin. And swimming around in that black water is one of the baddest freshwater fish you can chase with a fly rod.

Meet the Giant Peacock Bass

Peacock bass have a reputation for brute strength, but Rodrigo says that description misses half the story. They can smash a popper, head straight for structure and wreak havoc on tackle, but they're also remarkably intelligent fish.

“They can be as shy as an old brown trout that refuses your fly,” Rodrigo says, “or as crazy predators as a white shark.”

Rodrigo should know. He broke the IGFA all-tackle length world record for peacock bass with a fly rod, then broke his own record the following year. That second fish measured 92 centimeters—roughly 36 inches—and weighed 25.8 pounds. But the record fish may not even be my favorite fishing story from this episode.

Four Fish Over 20 Pounds

Rodrigo was scouting a lagoon with his wife and several guides when one angler hooked up. Seconds later, Rodrigo hooked another. Then his wife hooked up. Suddenly they had three enormous peacock bass on at the same time—and then came yelling from the other boat. A fourth angler was hooked up.

“We have four big fish almost at the same time,” Rodrigo remembers. All four were over 20 pounds, a size he describes as a fish of a lifetime.

Imagine that scene: four giant peacock bass going berserk, guides scrambling for nets, fly lines everywhere and nobody quite believing what was happening. And yes, some of it was caught on video. But here's the part I love: Rodrigo has been fishing the jungle for more than 25 years, and he says something like this has happened exactly once.

A Lagon Nobody Had Ever Fished

Another story gets even closer to what makes the Amazon so intriguing. Just weeks before our conversation, Rodrigo was exploring the upper Rio Marié with Ross Purnell of Fly Fisherman when they entered a lagoon Rodrigo says had never been fished before.

Two monster peacock bass were cruising near the surface. They threw big flies, and the fish followed and refused them. Again and again. Then Rodrigo noticed tiny baitfish scattering in front of the fish.

He cut off his big fly, grabbed the smallest white baitfish pattern he could find and cast it in front of one of the giants. First strip—boom. “It matched the hatch,” he told me.

So apparently even in the middle of the Amazon, the same lesson applies: follow the food.

Typical Peacock Bass Fly, SF Baitfish

The People Who Know the Jungle Best

Yet the deeper we got into our conversation, the less this episode became solely about catching fish. Rodrigo and his partners spent years earning the trust of Indigenous communities before some of these fisheries were ever opened to visiting anglers. Even catch-and-release was a foreign concept. Why would someone travel thousands of miles, catch a fish, take a picture and put it back?

At one early meeting, an Indigenous chief finally told Rodrigo and his partner Marcelo Pérez: show us. So they pulled out a fly rod. Marcelo cast while Rodrigo literally played the role of the fish, grabbing the line and demonstrating how this whole crazy enterprise worked. The room erupted in laughter.

After three days of meetings, they were given permission to explore the river. Today, Rodrigo says the partnerships are 50/50, with money helping fund projects such as clean water, solar power, schools, medical facilities and transportation. Indigenous guides also work alongside professional fly fishing guides, combining modern angling techniques with generations of knowledge about the jungle.

“The way they can spot a fish in the water without polarized glasses,” Rodrigo says, is something you have to see to believe.

Rodrigo became so close to these people he held his wedding here.

More Than a Fishing Trip

There's another wonderful contradiction to Rio Marié. You're hundreds of miles inside one of the great wildernesses on earth, yet your home is a surprisingly comfortable floating lodge that follows the fish. Each morning you climb into a skiff and disappear into a world of black water, white sand, macaws overhead and monkeys calling from the trees.

And somewhere along a bank or cruising a shallow flat is a peacock bass big enough to make you wonder whether your knots are really as good as you think they are.

Near the end of our conversation, however, Rodrigo said something that puts the whole experience into perspective: “If we don't do the right thing, we'll be the last generation that still fish wild places in the Amazon.”

The giant peacock bass will get your attention. The explosive strikes might even get you on an airplane. But the chance to experience a place this wild—and meet the people who have called it home for generations—may be what you remember long after the fishing is over.

Listen to the Full Rio Marié Episode

And there is a lot I haven't told you. We haven't even gotten to 300-pound arapaima on a fly rod, prehistoric wolf fish, sight fishing the Amazon, what happens when a giant peacock heads for the timber, or how in the world you operate a floating lodge this far from civilization.

Listen to the Episode

You'll have to hear those stories from Rodrigo. Listen to my full conversation with Rodrigo Salles on The Destination Angler Podcast and come along with us into the Brazilian Amazon and the wild waters of the Rio Marié.

Tight lines!