ARKANSAS FISHERMEN HIT AMAZON TRAIL

By Joe Mosby/SPECIAL TO THE COMMERCIAL

Those world-traveling Arkansas fishing fanatics — Tom Poe, Brad Hendricks and Robert Shoptaw — had a fourth Arkansan in their company on their latest adventure — seven days in the remotest area of Brazil’s Amazon headwaters.

Lee Shoptaw of Fayetteville joined his dad, a Little Rock resident, Poe of Conway and Hendricks of Little Rock for a week of daylight-to-dark fishing on the Cuini River.

To get a taste of where they were, look at a map of Brazil. It’s bigger than the Untied States. Go far, far inland n the northern part of Brazil and find the city of Manaus. Never heard of it? Nearly 2 million people live there. That’s where the Arkansans landed by airliner. They boarded a smaller plane for another leg of the trip and finally switched to a float plane for a long ride upriver before landing at a floating fishing camp.

“It was a good trip, and it was interesting getting in and getting out of there,” Poe said.

These fellows lean toward fly-fishing in their outings, previous ones including Siberia and Alaska and other exotic spots. They took fly-fishing gear this time, too, but Poe said they wound up relying on bait-casting rigs for a variety of large fish, many of them peacock bass.

“We caught several peacock bass that weighed over 20 pounds,” Poe said, “and we caught a whole bunch of 15- to 18-pound peacock bass.”

The switch from fly-fishing to bait-casting tactics was necessitated by high water conditions, Poe said. They had the river to themselves. No towns, no villages, no camps, just an occasional native going after turtles.

Poe said Brazilian guides would pull into a wall of greenery, move to the bow of the long, narrow boats and then begin hacking with machetes. They would open a path to hidden lagoons with some astounding fish life.

“The guides kept talking about ‘bullfish’ and said they would not hit our lures, that they ate grass. We finally saw these bullfish, and they were manatees. We had no idea manatees were down there and living in fresh water. Every day we saw freshwater dolphins, too. Sometimes we would cut through to one lake or lagoon, go to the end of it and cut through to another one.”

Parrots and macaws were everywhere, he said. Caimans — cousins of alligators — were here and there. Rains came daily in this equator country, but mosquitoes and other noxious insects were absent. “They told us this was due to the tannin in the water form the jungle trees, that this kept down insects,” Poe said.

The camp consisted of several tents on pontoon boats tied to a larger commissary or headquarters boat which had the cooking and dining facilities.

“We had great meals,” Poe said. “Evening meals lasted about two hours, and we had a lot of natural fruits from the area.”

He described the setting as “wild frontier-land ... It was untouched triple canopy jungle country.” He said since they were close to the equator, the sun rose at 6 a.m. year-round and set at 6 p.m. year-round.

Poe, Hendricks and Robert Shoptaw had made three previous fishing visits to the Amazon River area of Brazil, but not to the Cuini River. Their last visit was about 10 years ago.