The speckled peacock bass just might be the meanest fish in the Amazon River basin. And that’s considering a long list of unfriendly characters. Here, everything that wasn’t equipped with size, speed, poison stingers or fangs has long since become extinct. Instead of bluegills, they have piranha. There are several species of giant catfish. Even the relatively toothless arawana amuses itself by leaping into tree branches and eating birds. The speckled peacock stands out because it eats everything that it even thinks it can fit into its mouth. I personally watched a trio of 20-pounders chase a school of smaller butterfly peacocks right up onto the beach. We caught one of the group—while it was in the process of eating one of its 3-pound cousins. It weighed 24 pounds.

Duriing low-water periods, fly casters enjoy shots at trophy speckled peacocks like this.

Plug fishermen have been heading south to tackle these bruisers for years, but only recently have fly fishermen developed strategies for this hard-fighting tropical member of the cichlid family. In South Florida canals, transplanted populations of butterfly peacocks have provided limited testing for fly anglers. The big tucunare and related paca, both considered speckled peacocks by the International Game Fish Association, are altogether different game.

Water level is everything if you want to fly fish for giant peacocks in Brazil. The season for Amazonia peacocks is roughly from September through March and a lot depends on whether you are above or below the equator. You are fishing in the world’s largest rain forest and the key word there is “rain.” Even the tributary rivers can be 20 to 40 feet higher at the end of the rainy season than at the end of the dry season. When the water is high, it extends well into the jungle and so do the fish. Water levels vary with each watershed and while one area may be having a flood, another can be suffering from a drought. When you are booking a trip, you cannot grill the travel agent on the lodge enough about the water levels and patterns. Every year is different, but do everything possible to fish during low water; the lower the better. You also want falling rather than rising water, so do as much research as possible before selecting a lodge and a time. Timing your trip is everything. As a rule, January and February are the surest bets for low water.

Water levels are far more important for fly fishermen than plug casters. With few exceptions, the water will be dark with limited visibility. If the fish are roaming around a flooded jungle, they are not going to come out for a streamer—they won’t even know it’s there. Plug fishermen throw giant propeller lures that send up two feet of spray with each jerk. It seems to me that the peacocks are attracted to the noise as much as anything else and I have had some hit the plug so hard and fast that they knocked it 15 feet into the air. The strikes are what you would expect from an amberjack being teased with a blue runner.

There are a number of excellent lodges and houseboats in Amazonia and a reputable agent such as Quest, Amazon Tours, World Wide Angling or Sweetwater Travel will do their best to give you the trip of your life—just make it clear that you want to fly fish. Most operations are not set up for fly fishing and many of the guides do not understand that we do things differently than the plug casters. Insist on a guide who knows what a fly rod is and get a firm commitment from the lodge when you book the trip. It is also important that you share the boat with another fly fisherman. If one guy is casting plugs and the other is trying to fly fish, there are going to be major problems. Most Amazon boats are 18 feet long, give or take a foot. All have electric motors which creep the boat along the shoreline, allowing the anglers to cast to pockets and structure. Well, the range of the plug rod is well over 100 feet and a good fly caster will be throwing 60 feet on average. Distancing the boat from the shoreline thus becomes a problem. It is a better plan to have the same type fishermen in a boat so that they can share the good water equally.