Arawana

[jbird]

Jeff, did you encounter any Payara, Traira or Arapaima? The Arapaima has a similar boody shape as the Arawana but grow to immense size. Any of these three species would give me nightmares if I ever enountered one in person. I believe they are found in the most remote regions (especially the Traira) That would be extremely cool to find some of these prehistoric beasts and trick them on a fly!

[DLJeff]

Jay -
One payara was landed this trip. I think a second one was LDR'ed. We usually see a few small trairas but I can't recall getting one myself. I did get a rather large cachorro this trip and their teeth are nothing to scoff at or make a mistake while removing your fly. My boat partner and I had several really good casts at an arapaima (piraricu) that I estimated at 100lbs in a lagoon. It stayed close enough to the boat and high enough in the water that we could site cast to it. Got one head turn and a short follow but it didn't seem very interested in eating. We also landed all four species of peacock bass plus a few hybrids, oscars, jacundas, cachorro, aruana, pirahna (white and blacks), pacu, and a couple others I can't remember the name.

[jbird]

Well I had to wade thru some interesting google results on cachorro. LOL!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cachorro

Cool lookin fish. Looks like a nuclear ladyfish mutation!

[Morgan]

Jay -
One payara was landed this trip. I think a second one was LDR'ed. We usually see a few small trairas but I can't recall getting one myself. I did get a rather large cachorro this trip and their teeth are nothing to scoff at or make a mistake while removing your fly. My boat partner and I had several really good casts at an arapaima (piraricu) that I estimated at 100lbs in a lagoon. It stayed close enough to the boat and high enough in the water that we could site cast to it. Got one head turn and a short follow but it didn't seem very interested in eating. We also landed all four species of peacock bass plus a few hybrids, oscars, jacundas, cachorro, aruana, pirahna (white and blacks), pacu, and a couple others I can't remember the name.

Jeff do you have pictures of the diff sub species of peacock bass? Four is a good number for a trip. But there are a lot more than 4 different sub species of cichla. WOuld love to see some pics.

[DLJeff]

Gangster -
Here's a couple pics that illustrate some of the different cichlids we caught.

The first one is a temensis. Note the three vertical bars. I noticed that Bill HUtchinson posted a trip for peacock bass in Puerto Rico and the photos in his post show a cichlid with four vertical bars.

The second pic is a borboleta or butterfly. They get up to around 8 lbs and are the most common. Sometimes we caught so many we would hold our cast if we saw borboletas.

The next pic is a nice pair of spotteds. They are greyish with cream colored spots and dashes running horizontal. They get up to 10 - 12lbs. But Carlos (lodge manager) told me that they had some fishery biologists there a couple weeks ago and they said what we called spotted actually have the same DNA as the larger temensis. So they might be just a color phase. Many of them have the three vertical bars like the temensis.

The last pic is a close up of a spotted and you can see the bars and cheek spots.

This last pic is a large male temensis. The males grow this large bump on the top of their heads when they get into breeding mode. I'm not sure anyone knows the purpose or function of the bump. But it's pretty cool when you catch one. Cichlids evidently breed all year round down there because you can catch them with the bump any time.

[Morgan]

Jeff those are just 2 different sub species of cichla(peacock bass). The first one w/ the large vertical bars is the adult pattern of cichla temensis. When smaller they have the spots on them like the others you posted. As they get larger(mature), the spots dissapear. The green one you call a butterfly(common name for a few different sub species of cichla), is a cichla orinocensis. They are found throughout a few different regions. A few other cichla species can be found in different river systems all throughout south america. Brazil has some of the most unique and sought after sub species of cichla for the home aquarium.

None the less...a very cool thread. The amazon is number one on my bucket list for fishing destinations. I would love to go fishing as well as collect a few for my home aquariums.

[Morgan]

Cichla Orino
C. Piquitti..azul
C. Melanie...xingu
C. Kelberi

The full tank shot has adults of Orino, azuls and a kelberi. There is over 10 sub species of cichla.
Im a bit of a fish nerd. I love my fish...whether fishing for them or enjoying them at home. Peacock bass made the aquarium hobby for me a bit of an addiction. I have spent a small fortune on my fish throughout the years.

[DLJeff]

The Agua Boa web site has some good photos and info as well. I think I read somewhere that there are many cichlid species. Supposedly the azul is down in that area as well but it's harder to distinguish from the others and easily hybridizes as well.

[Morgan]

The azul is very easy to distinguish between different sub-species to the trained eye.
Pic 2 in my post shows azuls..pic 5 has 2 adult azuls. They do not hybridize as easy/often as one would think.
There are Cichla piquitti(azuls), in the rio arguaria river as well as Cichla kelberi.
SOme sub species of cichla look quite alike to the untrained eye...even as adults. Cichla monoculous, cichla occelaris and cichla kelberi all look very similar. As juvie's they are very hard to tell apart even to the trained eye. As they become adults they all have those stand out charecteristics that make it quite easy to tell apart. When it comes to peacock bass in the home aquarium I am quite the nerd. I research and them on a daily basis. So targeting them on the fly makes them very appealing. I currently own 4 different sub species of cichla. But have owned 7 different species in all. One of the cooler things that makes them really fun to collect in the home aquarium is the difference in pattern they can have from collection point to collection point. Like a Cichla orino from the rio meta vs a Cichla orino from the rio negro. The patterns are unique from each location. Just like trout and many other species of fish.

One of these days I will fish the amazon rivers for cichla, arowana as well as the payara's. For now I will just continue to oogle and awe at all the info posted. Sorry to derail your thread. On with the pics

[DLJeff]

Here's a couple shots of a good size aruana I caught while my boat partner was landing his payara. That was a very memorable double.