Brazil Trip Report - Fall 2026
Nov 02, 2026
I was very excited to introduce Terry to the Brazilian Amazon River and to peacock bass fishing in the jungle. He had never been to this part of the world before and we were initially set for an unusual adventure opening a new lodge on a river that no one had sport fished for several years. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out because the lodge, which was still under construction, wasn't ready to host anglers by the time our trip rolled around. We were three weeks too early!
However, thanks to Rob and his backup plan with Bucket List Fly Fishing we had an excellent adventure on the Xeriuini River (where I have fished two other trips.) In the end, we went to a familiar area but it wasn't entirely the same, as we were further upstream than on my two previous trips, allowing me to see a lot of new water.
We had a couple of days in Manaus to settle in and explore the area. While there we met up with the others joining us from the US - an excellent group of people. As part of our exploration we visited the largest fishing store in Manaus. We bought a few things while we were there. The number of lures they had was extremely impressive and the ability to have a beer while setting up your gear was a nice touch!
We also enjoyed a great afternoon at the Musa | Museu da Amazônia Walking through the preserved jungle immediately on the north edge of Manaus is a great intro to what the Amazon is about. A highlight is getting to the top of a 42M tower (a solid stair climb!) and getting to look out over the canopy of the Jungle that stretches as far as the eye can see away from Manaus. We were lucky and got to see a troupe of howler monkeys moving through the canopy near the tower.
We had great Brazilian-style meals (choices brought to your table) at the BBQ restaurant as well as a Pizza place. The dessert pizzas were surprisingly excellent! Will definetely return.
Friday Oct 9th we did the "City/River Tour." This was my 6th time doing this tour and it's different every time due to the variety of options. Watching the "rookie Arapaima" anglers "hook into" their first huge fish on the "fishing sticks" was great fun. Always lots of laughter. The meeting of the waters is truly one of the impressive natural phenomena on the planet. Water levels were already well on their way down and it will be interesting to see how El Nino continues to affect the rivers. So far it is not as extreme as 23/24 (it is 6M higher than those years which is helpful). Some of us swam with the boto pink dolphins which is always fascinating. When they swim under you and rub up on your feet it's a unique and surprising experience! They are a very cool animal. For the first time I actually went into the Teatro Amazonas and our tour guide, Aldo, gave us some excellent history. It is quite the building inside and very impressive from the outside!
Since this was a backup experience, reaching the Xeriuini was not a simple float plane ride. So Friday after dinner our group ended up on a "fast boat" to head up river overnight (some sleep was had!) to the community of Terra Preta (a small remote village where many of the guides and staff live.) It was a 380km journey up the Rio Negro, up the Rio Branco, and finally up the lower Xeriuini just on the south side of the equator. From there we transferred our gear to the guide boats and made a further 185km trip up river to the camp on the north side of the equator. A long journey to be sure but fascinating to see the river when the sun was up. Will be glad of the float plane though in January!
Screenshot of a portion of the Rio Negro on our way upstream.
Since we were the first group in camp, it took a day or two to get everything running properly (power, water, etc). The new solar system is very nice and quiet, and as the intricacies of solar power are fine-tuned, it will be an excellent way to have a powered, quiet camp. Hard to believe you can run an AC unit in our floating cabin all night on the solar but we never ran out once!
I have been on the Xeriuini two other trips. In 2024, the water was extremely low, which helped make it an amazing trip, but in hindsight it was a warning. In 2025 water levels were higher but the two years of previous drought had taken its toll, and the fish numbers had suffered. Five out of the six others in this trips group had been to the X in January of 2026 (only 9 months ago) and had an excellent trip again with fish numbers returning. Water levels this trip were lower than in '25 but nowhere near as low as in '24. In my opinion they were ideal. Terry had an outstanding introduction to peacock bass fishing. Fishing was excellent once again with serious numbers of fish. I would say that the overall average size was lower than 24 but higher numbers which I anticipated post recovery.
Butterfly Peacocks grow quickly so by our next trip in January we should see an extra pound or two on many of the fish which will be excellent. Only a few of the Acu (Tucanare) (the bigger 3 bar ones) were starting spawning. So we "saw" a limited number of these large (10+ pound) fish but they were in some lagoons and Terry and I both caught them; the other anglers also had multiple chances and caught some as well. In my opinion the real stars of the show are the plentiful butterflies. They have a good attitude towards flies put in the right spot!
I ended up using some variation of a surface popper for about 80% of my fishing. I just love the way they eat on the surface. It does mean I catch fewer fish, but it really doesn't matter when there was as much activity as there was. And when dozens of fish (daily) "skadoosh" ,that was the best term we could come up with (a nod to Kung Fu Panda), your surface pattern it just makes you laugh and truly enjoy what Peacock Bass are all about. I did count for one short spell how many more Terry got on a subsurface streamer to my "successful hookup" on the popper. After 10-15 minutes I quit counting at 7 or 8 to 1!!!! At times fishing was silly. Terry saw the "wisdom" of the popper early in the game as well and we both threw poppers for much of our days. When we fished the big lagoons we did use sinking intermediate or type 6 8wt lines successfully, but I truly enjoy fishing the 6 or 7wt much more. It's simply entertaining fishing at is best!
Terry racked up the species list (Butterfly, Acu (Paca), Jacunda, Pirahna, Oscar, Arowana, Dogfish, and Wolf-fish), there may have been others that I've forgotten.We saw a beautiful family of Boto Pink Dolphins with a very young baby that was only about a month old and about 18-20" long. A true joy to see close to the boat and Terry spent time getting some cool drone footage of the family.
We saw our share of caiman, including some very large specimens that "eat Terry tossed flies", snakes, lizards, huge river otters, and more Macaws than I have ever seen before in a couple of trees that were fruiting. 16 to 20 birds at once is a noisy, beautiful sight! We had an excellent BBQ lunch on the Rio Novo and a great partial day in this unique very clear water system. It is staggering to see how many fish are in some places! We had a truly unique Amazon experience overall.
Food was excellent as usual. Rob our host really takes his BBQing serisously and has trained the staff well. All amazing meals with a great soups to start! The apres fishing swim/bath is always a highlight! The water is such a perfect temperature and the ice cold drink while your swimming just makes it all the better!
Our return trip back down the river took about 5.5 hours and we ended up back in Terra Preta for the afternoon before the plane picked us up to head back to Manaus. It was "children's day" in the community and the kids were having fun with it. The hairdo's we saw were incredible. Terry had to play some soccer with the kids and we had a really enjoyable time seeing how this remote community lives. It was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Thanks to the communities of Terra Preta and Canauini for inviting us into their incredible home on the Amazon! Obrigado meus amigos!
Very much looking forward to being back there in January.
David
