Incredible Fish Market

March 5, 2010

From the Tropical Manaus Hotel

Amazonas Brazil

My group of anglers including Granny, Paul Cavanaugh and his girlfriend Amanda Welch, Gregg and Jo Friedman, and David and his dad Fred Truax are all here in Manaus, Brazil in high spirits and ready to go fish. We will be using the floating camps of River Plate Outfitters, a well known company that has been leading fishing trips to the Amazon for many years. Most of us have been here since early yesterday morning when we arrived from the States. Our fishing trip begins tomorrow when we will catch a float plane into the Xeriuni River. In the meantime, we are relaxing and enjoying the peacefulness at our stopover hotel along the banks of the Rio Negro River.

This morning we visited the fish market here in Manaus. I visit fish markets throughout the world but there are few that compare to the one here. The Amazon River Basin is home to over a thousand

fish species – more species than the entire Atlantic Ocean! This market offers a rare opportunity to set eyes on the unusual pirarucu as well as the most exotic looking catfish species you can imagine. For me it is few hours of paradise in which I dream of each of these species some day sucking in my fly.

After the market visit we took a boat ride out to the famous “Meeting of the Waters”. This is where the enormous Rio Negro dumps into the even more impressive Amazon River. I broke out a little “Monsoon Currier” luck as we got absolutely poured on by torrential rain during our short trip. There was no harm done though as the temperature here is hovering in the upper 90°s.

It was great day but now everyone including myself is itching to get our butts into the jungle and start catching some bad-ass fish.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing web site