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Show Wednesday. January 3, 2007 D7 Amazon Continued from B6 3 Uu u u n XS " - Vernal Express Our home for the week was a modern 10 pounds is difficult. Each fish seems to save one last burst of, energy to expend at the boat and often frees itself and escapes. However, when one is landed, it is like winning some kind of prize. The fish are gloriously glo-riously colored ... bright reds, yellows and browns. The eyes have a florescent maroon ring around the outside that show emotion. After the first couple of days, at dinner, I noted to the group at my table that the eyes of the Peacock show emotion. "What do you know about fish emotion?" one of my com panions replied. Are you an ichthyologist?" "I know emotion when I see it," I retorted. "Besides, any fish that protects its babies could have emotion in its eye." Surprisingly, later in the wee, most fishermen agreed with my assessment. One effective way of catching large Peacocks is to find their young. The new fry move about the river in what is called a "fry pod." This is a group of thousands of fry about a half inch long that stay on the top of the water, making a pattern that is easily identified. When a pod is located, a lure can be cast through the pod or near the pod. Unseen from above, are the parents, usually larger Peacocks. They will attack the lure with an intensity difficult to describe. We had two hookups hook-ups with fish so large that we couldn't hold them and we lost them both. Other Fish Occasionally, a Piranha will strike any lure, offering a surprise sur-prise to the angler. Taking them off the hook is always a -dangerouslb because of tbJb; teeth. Their teeth resemble a 10-tooth ripsaw in size and sharpness. They attack with enthusiasm. It wouldn't have surprised me to see them try to bite the prop on the boat! One day we fished for them using meat. They could clean a large piece of meat off the hook before I could tighten the line after casting! Most of the different fish in the rivers are incredibly colorful. color-ful. We caught a 35 lb. red-tail catfish. It was red on the fins and up its sides. Its body had a mottled yellow-green color, almost like camo clothing. There were several smaller species spe-cies of catfish caught. Some of the smaller ones had whiskers 23 inches long. Perhaps the most interesting interest-ing fish was one called the Pirarucu. The natives usually had their own names for all the fish. This fish had no common English name. This fish is also called the Arapaima or Paiche. This fish is the largest-scaled, wholly freshwater fish in the world! It can reach 10 feet and weigh 550 pounds. To survive reduced levels of oxygen in the water, these fish have physically evolved the ability to simply rise to the surface and gulp air like a dolphin. dol-phin. This makes it possible to stalk them in about and sight cast to them. Our group had two hookups but could not hold them. Two fishermen on the lower boat caught two of these giant, prehistoric looking fish. I unknowingly had a large one follow my lure to the edge of the boat where it rolled over, in a breath-taking display of arrogance. arro-gance. It took me a few minutes to regain my composure. The Unini River had reached ....... Exotic flowers, such as these giant water lilies, graced the land and water in every direction. houseboat, with all the amenities, including air conditioning. a low level for several weeks before we arrived. However, a few days before we arrived, torrential rains had caused the river to rise four feet. It rained most of the days wefished and the river continued to rise. The fishing success was diminished as the river rose. However, all of us fished hard and continued to catch a few fish each day. Heavy rain gear was of great value. Now I know why they call the area a "rain forest." Food on the Unini I poked my head into the galley gal-ley of our boat. "Anna, what is the meat you cooked?" Anna, our hefty Portuguese cook, shook her head indicating she didn't understand my question. I motioned her out to the buffet area and pointed to some meat that looked the like pork. "Oh, Paca, Paca," she replied. I then asked Gary, our Indian camp manager, what a Paca was. He disappeared and retuned with a photo taken a few nights before of animal that looked a cross between a rat and a deer. It had a common meat taste, slightly sweeter than pork. Our meals were served buffet style and were basically good, although becoming heavy after a week's indulgence. During that time we ate Peacock bass, Paca, crocodile (caiman) tail, catfish and piranha. Also fruits, small, sweet bananas, with thick skins, pineapples, cashew fruit and juice, mangoes, watermelon water-melon and honeydew melon. At least, that's what I thought the fruit was. Anna was very good at making mak-ing ,s doughnuts, cakes and other desserts. , She r was a good-natured woman who also served as a masseuse, earning earn-ing extra money. For five dollars, dol-lars, stiff, sore fishermen could receive a 30-minute rubdown. The Fascinating Jungle The Amazon Basin jungle is a fascinating place. During our total stay, I never saw a single l The Unini people are beautiful, but primitive in their living conditions. Their whole life revolves around the river. piece of litter on any kind of land or on water. (Exceptions were where nomadic Indians camp each year, seeking Brazil nuts). I never heard a sound of man; never heard or saw the exhaust rails of a single plane. Large Macaws flew over us regularly, but at a great distance. dis-tance. Huge, colorful parrots were seen but at a distance. This was caused by the great height of the trees, causing the songbirds to be above us in the high canopy. Huge flickers flick-ers were seen everywhere and we often heard their loud drumbeat We saw monkeys, subtly crossing over us as we hacked our way into the hidden lagoons. The group of natives working at our boat, in various capaci- ties, had an older man, whom they considered their "medicine "medi-cine man." He had greater knowledge of the medicinal value of plants and trees. I asked our camp manager, who communicated well in Portugeuse to ask the medicine man to take us into the jungle jun-gle and talk abut the various plants and trees. ' Both agreed and several other fishermen joined me in taking a half day off from fishing to learn of the plants and trees. We saw so many useful plants that I cannot remember many; however some, like camphor and various laxatives, as well as diarrhea treatments remains with me. Since I had been suffering suf-fering from the latter problem, I suggested: "cut that tree down and I'll eat it here." We saw several species of Bromeliads, as well as orchids and flowers with unknown names to the natives. The camp manager pointed out a beautiful beau-tiful flower and said: "This is a very valuable plant to Manaus," I looked closely and discovered it to be a common species of Caladium. I raise them in pots, here in Vernal. Early one morning, Ramon, one of the better guides, suddenly sud-denly pulled to the side of the river and looked for a small opening in the jungle to seek a hidden lagoon. Soon, he was hacking his way, making a small entrance. The water had risen enough for us to get out and push the boat over a huge log into a beautiful lagoon. Perhaps we were the only fishermen fish-ermen to ever cast a plug in that waterL, . There were wmte lilies 30 inches in diamegr, with large red and white flowers intermittently intermit-tently blooming throughout the lagoon. I quickly noticed that each leaf was protected by inch spines completely surrounding surround-ing the leaf. The blossoms were also protected by inch spines on the stems. Using forceps and pliers, we carefully took several sev-eral back to the boat to serve as table decorations, much to the delight of the fishermen. When entering the jungle, a strange silence seeps over you, broken only by the occasional sounds of birds, or the screeching screech-ing of monkeys. The jungle is relatively safe during the day, but that changes at night when the various animals come alive and begin to look for their prey. We saw mahogany trees 12 Ashley mm Ashley Realtyi lac 363 West 50 North Suite W8 Vernal (435) 789-7265 To solve Sudoku, enter digits so that every row, column and three-by-three sector contain one of each digit 1-9. Solution found on A6 The peacock bass is a glorious colored feet in diameter and 150 feet tall, reminiscent of the giant redwood trees in California. The blood tree was interesting. After pealing a section of bark, it bled a bright red sap, used for coloring woven fabric and pots. The Brazil nut tree was amazing to me. Extremely tall, with straight trunks and huge 5 inch seed pods. These pods turn black when ripe and fall to the ground, threatening anything any-thing below. The natives take a machete and cut off the top of the pod and the Brazil nuts are arranged in the pod like sections sec-tions of an orange. They gather these nuts in hand woven bas The piranha, was so aggressive that it 3 n , - f WHAT IS YOUR RESOLUTION? NEW BEGINNERS ACCEPTED FOR SPRING Monday & Thursday evenings . 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm A REAL Family Values Activity 287 East 1 00 Valley Realty's Sudpku Valley fish. Landing one is like winning a prize. kets, placed in primitive boats and taken down river to where larger boats eventually move them to the market in Manaus. The Pain of Travel Travel is becoming increasingly increas-ingly painful and expensive. The security measures imposed on travelers in this country and in foreign countries is intimidating, intimi-dating, often foolish and unnecessary. unnec-essary. In spite of these experiences, experi-ences, once arriving at unique places of the world, I find the efforts mostly worthwhile. Travel, whether foreign or domestic, is life altering and incredibly educational. The people, the food, the culture, V'A foulhooked. The teeth are similar to a Korean KARATE 781-1323 www.vernaltangsoodo.com South, Suite 2 in the HALL building 1 23 4 JL J. A -L -L JL JL A 7 15 11 1 1 1 12 1 the environment, all become blended into one great experience experi-ence that cannot be obtained in any other way other than being there, in person. The problem with visiting these exotic locations is that one often wants to return. In any case, a return trip must be compared to the many, yet unknown places that remain unvisited. Alas, so many fish and so little time... Editor's note: This article is an excerpt from Volume V of a future book on hunting and fishing to be published by the author. li t ! N '4.4 10-tooth ripsaw. Puzzle WW fit' Tjl!H,ilHli f 4 |