They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, I think they were right. I’ll let the photos do the talking.

A few more of the photos from the Rio Nanay.

Can’t leave out the mud!!

Want to know how to make me jump out of bed without a cup of coffee? Hello Tiger Shovelnose! And yes, they get a LOT bigger.

Below is a beautiful and giant freshwater stingray caught by a local villager. To give you size reference I stuck my feet with those big boots on in the picture.

This is just the tiniest sample of all we saw.

Here is the first fish that I caught, a Granulosa catfish. I just left the bait out soaking for a while, and when I came back to check, he was on the line.

This is another catfish I caught later that evening. If all goes well, he will be a new addition to our aquarium at home. Once we identify the species I will update the post.

Prior to catching my first piranha I tried using this lure. It was bit clean in half, and you can see the teeth marks. However, it gave me the inspiration for the setup the finally worked.

This is the setup that finally worked for catching piranha. Originally I had the weight where the fishing line tied into the wire leader, but it kept getting snagged on debris in the river. So, I decided to put the weight right at the head of the bait fish (on the hook) so it could easily drop through the water and not get snagged. I also used a whole fish rather than chunks of bait and it worked very effectively (the shape of the lure that was bit in half was the motivation). As you can see, the wire leader got munched on, if it were only fishing line the fish certainly would have gotten away.

This is what happens when a piranha goes after your bait, and you don’t get the hook set. Not a pretty sight… notice the eyeball popped out.

FINALLY! Here is the first Red Belly Piranha I caught with the setup shown above. I wouldn’t be surprised it is was the same fish that bit the lure in half. You can’t tell from the picture, but I was experimenting with the weight right at the head of the bait fish, and had not gotten around to using a wire leader yet (so, I got lucky he didn’t cut the line). I was quite pleased with myself as the boat crew had been pulling them out of the water left and right earlier in the morning, and none of us guests had caught a single one.

A better view of the actual fish. I was surprised by how bright and rich the colors were.

Here’s another one that I caught. Not quite as big as the the others, but it’s always fun to bring one in.

Teeth!

Another catfish I caught. No idea what this is.

Another random catfish.

My first Black Belly Piranha. As I so keenly observed, they don’t actually have a black belly. Jen says they darken as they age.

Here is a close up of the Black Belly Piranha. This poor guy was large enough that he ended up on the dinner table. The rest of the piranha I caught went back to live another day.

Along the river, we came across the local people. Their lifestyles are completely different than ours. They depend on the river in one way or another for to survive. Iquitos is very poor. The areas around it were even poorer. One village we visited fish not for money, but fish for sustenance. Extra catch for money is rare. The bricks for their homes were made out of the clay the village was built upon. However, as we got glimpses into their lives, we captured many moments of smile and laughter. I know there is suffering, and that should not be ignored. However, you could see that they found happiness with each other, and they showed us repeatedly that they were kind people.

There are more great shots of the local villagers to come, but we are exhausted and it’s going to be an early morning. Hopefully there is decent wifi tomorrow.

Goodnight All!

How Devon didn’t totally freak out and drop his shorts right then and there, I have no idea. A large wolf fish found his way up his shorts, and this is no joke of a fish. At this size, no one would have judged him for screaming like a little girl upon realizing that was in his shorts!

The Nenita is basically a large house boat that is equipped for keeping fish alive as well as us comfortable. The boat had modest accommodations, but the crew has kept it in good condition and very clean. I was completely comfortable here, and it quickly became home for me. We are going to try uploading the video tour next.

Eric tried out the seine netting and the dip nets, but he was happiest with his fishing rod. Given how successful he was, it is not surprising. I lost count of how many Pirahna he pulled in, and he also managed to bring in some great catfish. One of his catches is a beautiful catfish that is now at the exporter waiting to be shipped home to us.

The other way Eric caught fish was on camera. He is responsible for the majority of the pictures taken this trip. He followed us around trying to snap photos as we all huddled around the seine net or scattered about with dip nets trying to catch our fish. Meanwhile, we are often so deep in mud we would randomly fall over. Then, when we brought them in, he was between taking instruction as to how to help us sort and care for the newly caught fish and taking photos of as many flailing fish species as he could. As a result, we have some great pictures of so many different species.

For the last week we have been working as a group to catch and sort our fish. Dr. David Schleser and Dr. Devon Graham have been ID´ïng the thousands of fish we caught. At this point I don´t know how many species we caught, but if you look through the photos, you can get a small sampling of all the different types. We tromped through knee deep mud, swam through the rivers, hiked though the jungle, and dug through the hiding spots in the small streams. That all in itself was so much fun, and to find these diverse creatures living in their natural habitat was just spectacular.

Each day we would go out multiple times. Usually, we started with a seine net (what you are seeing me hold here). As we get a chance we will show better photos as well as video on how we did this. The amount of life in the river was just amazing.

The silty, soft water is the run off from the Andes mountains. This acid water is called black water. Visibility is about 2 inches. Fortunately, this water does not support mosquitos well, and thus we had very few bites.

I spent most of the week wet and muddy, but my clothes were perfect. They met the goal of being comfortable wet. Often we were not out of the water long enough to dry off, especially with that level of humidity. It is winter now here and even still we definitely got lucky on the weather. It was much cooler than usual often ranging between 70 and 80. A couple night I suspect in got into the high 60´s. However, the river water stays warm, and its a good thing because we were showering in it unheated. (Say what you will about that possibly being dirty, but my skin loved this acid, soft water).

I have to say, I enjoyed it all. I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere. All of us big kids played in the mud and got so excited when we were finding our treasure. One week of this was not enough for me. I would very much enjoy getting to spend more time doing this.