Rainbows, Cutthroats and the Prince of Bhutan: Fly Fishing Adventures around the World

By Frank Perkins

The book describes fly fishing in some unusual destinations around the world, including Mongolia, Iceland, the Falkland Islands, Bhutan and the Seychelles. Some out of the ordinary catches include Black Sea bass, Falklands Mullet, Lenok, Taimen and a Mud Skipper. More than stories of fishing and catches, it includes some off the wall travel adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Perkins
• Release date: Aug 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465963970

Frank Perkins

Frank Perkins was born and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Serving his ROTC time in the Army, he was introduced to the wonders of electronics and never looked back. After the army, he worked briefly outside Washington, DC, but soon moved to Florida and, again, never looked back.He worked as a design engineer and participated in several state-of-the-art projects, including what was then the highest data rate telephone modem (a blazing 16 kb/s), and what is probably still the highest performing HF radio modem ever (for use on the challenging 2-30 MHz band).He received a number of patents and awards for his work. He also managed to go on a round the world modem-testing trip (including a stop in India), which whetted his appetite for travel. When he retired he published a book recounting his business travels.He has traveled extensively as a volunteer on scientific field research expeditions to many parts of the world. He also published a book on these expeditions.An enthusiastic fly fisherman, he has fished in several exotic spots around the globe for a variety of fresh- and saltwater species.Photography also attracted his interest and he has taken advantage of his travels to capture many images, some of which have appeared on travel posters and on an annual report cover.He enjoys sharing his pictures and experiences.

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Rainbows, Cutthroats and the Prince of Bhutan

Fly Fishing Adventures Around the World

by

Frank Perkins

Copyright 2011 Frank Perkins

Smashwords Edition

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Foreword

By Bill Sargent

Florida ToDay

Those of us who call ourselves fishermen often dream about adventurous and far away places of the world where we’d give just about anything to fish and explore. Costa Rica, Australia, Belize, New Zealand, maybe even the Seychelles are at the top of many lists.

Unfortunately few of us ever get the chance to so much as wet a line at such distant destinations. But we keep dreaming.

Frank Perkins is an exception. He’s a quiet, friendly, small-statured man with a passion for fly fishing who made up his mind years ago that he would travel and fish the world.

A career as an electronic engineer with assignments in many countries -- and helped by the fact that he was an Earthwatch Institute volunteer -- took Frank to many of the world’s most beautiful and exotic places.

Frank made it a point to never leave home without his fly rod. Come to think of it maybe a half dozen fly rods! Needless to say he fished a lot.

Over a period of 23 years he traveled to 25 countries on all seven continents and caught practically every fish in the book, from the black waters of the Amazon to the waterfalls of Iceland.

Ever hear of a mud skipper? It’s a fish in Australia that walks up river banks on its pectoral fins and low and behold Frank became one of the first fly fishermen to catch a mud skipper out of the water. I wondered how he was working the fly, so I asked him.

Oh, just twitching it along, making it look like a crab, was Frank’s reply with a sly grin showing under his beard.

It wasn’t long before Frank had volumes of notes, diaries and pictures. Soon he was in high demand as a speaker at fly fishing clubs and tackle shows. And he never went away without someone telling him he should write a book.

So he did.

By Frank’s own admission this isn’t a guide book or for that matter a how-to or where-to-go book. Frank leaves those writings to the Lefty Krehs of the world.

I like to think of it as a collection of fish stories that just happens to take place around the world, Frank explains.

Around the world indeed. Australia, Argentina, Botswana, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Gabon, Indonesia, Mongolia, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Slovenia, Zimbabwe just to name some of the chapters. In all he made four trips to the Amazon, three in Brazil and once in Peru.

Every chapter outlining every country is stacked with Frank’s observations, adventures and many times unusual experiences. Like the fishing trip with the Prince of Bhutan, His Highness Namgay Wangchuck. Frank rode to the river in Wangchuck’s Land Cruiser, complete with a gold crown in the flag standard in the front. It was first class all the way.

Needless to say Frank slept in every type of hotel room and lodge imaginable. Most were clean and comfortable, some not so clean and comfortable, but it seemed that the food always was good, even those times he wasn’t sure of the origin of the meat he was eating. It may be best that he didn’t know.

The lodging that stands out in my mind over all the others, says Frank, actually wasn’t a lodge but instead it was the home of Adrian Dufflocq in Chile. It was Adrian’s retirement home and it was a fantastic place with gracious hosts and good fishing.

Frank found the Falkland Islands to be the most remote of all the places he visited, outside of a trip to Antarctica, the only continent where he didn’t fish. Frank’s primary mission in the Falklands was to study Southern Elephant Seals as part of an Earthwatch expedition, but he made it a point to take on some of the brown trout that had been introduced to the Falklands in 1939 and again in 1947 from Chile. The winds blow strong in the Falklands, so Frank’s best advice is to bring an 8-weight rod.

Papua New Guinea was an amazing place, says Frank. He went there twice studying moths and other insects. No doubt he picked up some novel ideas for new fly patterns, assuming the fish were interested in some of the moths.

Frank actually made a bit of history in New Guinea when he fished a small stream, becoming the first white man to fish the stream and the first fly fisherman to ply the waters.

The fishing stories never stop in this one-man’s travelogue. It goes without saying that Frank’s book is a must read for us dreamers.

Bill Sargent

Preface

Fly fishing offers a good excuse to travel to some pretty remarkable parts of the world. At the same time, travel offers a good excuse for some pretty interesting fly fishing. The key is to keep your perspective and realize that some of the best fishing, and the best traveling, comes when things don’t go quite as expected. Some people want a seamless trip after their favorite species, at the peak of the season for their favorite techniques. This is a commendable objective, but the most careful planning can still run into unseasonable conditions. Another strategy is to deliberately select a locale that hasn’t yet become a famed destination, where the outfitters are still a little uncomfortable with Americans and the guides a little doubtful of fly fishermen. Things may not go as smoothly, and the number of fish may not be large, but the fun factor can be high. With a little effort, it is possible to fish a beach or stream where the fish are unlikely to have ever seen a fly. It can be great fun to catch a species new to you personally, and perhaps new to most of the angling world.

On the other hand, famous places usually have good reason to be famous, and there can be great satisfaction to hitting the peak of the salmon run. When things go good enjoy it, and store away your great catches to average with the days when the best thing that happens is that the wind drops below 20 knots for half an hour.

There are a few things to do to maximize the success of adventurous fishing trips. First, research the area thoroughly. The Internet has made this research much easier and more productive. There will still be surprises when you get there, but not as many.

An advantage of fly tackle is that it is practical to be prepared for a wide range of conditions. Prepare a compact but versatile fly tying outfit, with a good assortment of materials and colors. With this you can produce the odd color and size fly which is the local hot thing the week you are there. Fly tying can be a pleasant diversion in the evening at camp, and other fishermen will appreciate your gifts of the secret fly of the trip.

Take a camera, or two. One can be a compact, water-resistant point and shoot, but the other should be SLR whose optical viewfinder allows better composition in the sunlight.

Take a laptop computer or equivalent, and use it to keep a journal of your trip. It also provides a place for phone numbers and email addresses you may need.

Take a GPS. Its fun to know where you are and how long the float trip was.

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 The Amazon Basin

Chapter 3 Argentina

Chapter 4 Australia

Chapter 5 Bahamas

Chapter 6 Belize

Chapter 7 Bhutan

Chapter 8 Canada and Mexico

Chapter 9 Chile

Chapter 10 Costa Rica

Chapter 11 Falkland Islands

Chapter 12 Gabon

Chapter 13 Iceland

Chapter 14 Mongolia

Chapter 15 New Zealand

Chapter 16 Kamchatka

Chapter 17 Seychelles

Chapter 18 Slovenia

Chapter 19 Venezuela

Chapter 20 Incidental Fishing

Chapter 1

Introduction

Return to Table of Contents

I leaned back and studied the fish photos on the wall beyond my computer screen. Wow, I thought, remember when the Prince of Bhutan took me fishing...or when I let the stray dog into Adrian's mansion...or when the guide ran out of gas in Tasmania...or when the I caught the Mudskipper on the mud bank...or when I landed my first Tigerfish before a crowd of tourists, or....

I really should write a book, I thought. So much has happened in so many places. I need to tell people about the wild and wonderful spots in the world where you can cast a fly--and what weird experiences you can have getting to them. Here is the result when you let fly fishing be the justification for travel to places far and near.

It's not a guide book, although it can help you plan an unforgettable trip. It's not a how to catch 'em tome, although maybe the flies I used will work for you. What it is is a collection of fish stories from around the world, like you tell around a campfire, or over lunch on the shore. Maybe they will inspire you to go to one of these places, or somewhere different. Or maybe they will convince you to fish near home and do your traveling vicariously.

Chapter 2

The Amazon Basin

Return to Table of Contents

J. D. Haseman an early explorer wrote (in 1911) - Fishing in South America is by far the most dangerous of all forms of scientific exploration…. No man over fifty years of age should attempt to enter this region.

Things have improved since then, although the area is still rather remote. Let's go see.

The seaplane slowed and nudged into a backwater. The motor was shut off to await the boats from the lodge and the silence, heat and humidity of the Amazon Basin quickly settled in.

You would think that a Florida resident would be unlikely to notice a little heat and humidity, but the Amazon Basin gets your attention. I have had two expensive cameras die there, just from the humidity. But the fishing also gets your attention. The vast river system is most famous for the colorful Peacock Bass, but also contains many other weird and wonderful species that will eagerly (sometimes) hit a fly.

To understand the Amazon fishery, you need to know a little about the geography. First, the magnitude of the river is mind boggling. Two thousand miles above its mouth the Amazon is still a mile wide. It stretches over 95% of the width of the continent; the headwaters lie 100 miles from the Pacific. The basin stretches 2000 miles East to West, and almost as far North to South. Into this 3 million square mile area falls a heavy and seasonal rain. The rivers rise and fall 30 feet or more over a year. (The weight of the extra water actually deforms the earth's crust.) Since the land is mostly flat and low-lying, the water spreads scores of miles into the jungle in the rainy season. The fish gleefully follow the water and the food into the jungle, and are inaccessible to anglers. In the dry season, the water and the fish recede into the river channels, a concentrated bonanza for fishermen.

As always, the best fishing is in the most remote areas, so the problem is to establish a fishing base far from anything. Lodges have been built in promising areas, far from local inhabitants and their sustenance fishing. The only practical access is by flying in, either in a seaplane landing on the river, or to a landing strip laboriously hacked out of the jungle. A fixed lodge is comfortable and convenient, but some years the fish, for some reason, will be elsewhere, and sometimes the fishing pressure on the available stretch of river can impact even the Amazon abundance. For this reason, some operators use picturesque river boats, or strings of barges beached on a sandbar as the logistic base. These offer the advantage of some degree of mobility.

Reaching camp usually involves an overnight flight from Miami or another southern U.S. city into Manaus, Brazil, an old colonial city from the rubber days. To this day there is no useful road connection to the outside world: only air and river boats. There is a big opera house from the days when the rubber barons had to make there own culture.

From Manaus one or two hops by progressively smaller aircraft brings you to the lodge and the fishing.

The variety of fish is mind boggling. The scientific classifications are far from fixed, and the common names are even more confusing, so what is said here should not be accepted as gospel, but it will help you understand the immense variety of game fish.

There are five species of peacock bass, four occurring in the Amazon basin. (The other occurs in the Orinoco basin.) The largest is the Tucunare (Cichia temensis), attaining weights up to 27 pounds. They occur in two distinct color phases. In the non-spawning state, the paca phase, they have distinct lines of small white or yellow spots. In the spawning state, the assu phase, they have three pronounced vertical black bars along the body. The transformation between phases is gradual, so you catch examples with varying degrees of these characteristics. The universal characteristic of tucunare is an irregular black marking on the cheek behind the eye.

Another common species in the Amazon is the Butterfly Peacock (Chichia orinocensis). (Another species (Chichia ocellaris), introduced into Florida, is called the Butterfly Peacock there.) The Amazon Butterfly occurs up to 12 pounds and is characterized by bi-color spots along the side: typically black surrounded by a ring of yellow. All species exhibit great variation in color, depending on the habitat.

Many other species come your way as incidental by-catch; most of these are great sports fish in there own right. These really present an identification challenge: your guide will identify them by a local name (in Portuguese, or Spanish, depending on the locale), which may be different from the local name a hundred miles up-river. I rarely can even approximate the spelling of the local name. From correlating these spellings and my photos with various on-line data bases, I believe I have caught the following species at one time or another.

Aruana: a long slim fish, with a tiny tail fin and an upward facing mouth, apparently designed for taking popping bugs.

Bicuda: shaped like, and possibly related to the saltwater barracuda.

Golden Dorado: not common in the Amazon, but I have caught a couple. A salmon-shaped fish more commonly found in the Corriente region of Argentina.

Jacunda: A sporty bass-like fish with a eye-spot behind the gill plate.

Matrincha: A silvery streamlined fish with big scales.

Pacu: A chunky, blue-gill shaped fish.

Pirnha: Not as threatening to humans as Hollywood would have it, but don't let your fingers get in his mouth. Great for cleaning fur and feathers off your motley flies

Tranao (Dogfish): High on the list of ugliest fish, but great fun to catch.

My first Peacock Bass expedition was to Lake Guri, in Venezuela, technically outside the Amazon Basin. I caught quite a few fish, enough to encourage me go after them in the Amazon.

My first Amazon Basin expedition was actually to Peru, in 1995. Some notes from this trip:

(February 1995)

The phone rang as I was having a second cup of coffee on Thursday morning.

Can you still go on the Peacock Bass trip to Peru?

But I thought the border fighting with Ecuador had tied up the aircraft you need to get in to the camp.

We thought so too, but things have cleared up and we are going in.

Well, Saturday is short notice now, but ... sure, I'll be there.

A long-planned trip to the Amazon region of Peru had been canceled a few days earlier. Now I had one day to pack, but my list was still on the table and after a flurry of last minute activity I was in Miami, meeting the rest of the fishing party and awaiting the flight to Iquitos.

Iquitos is an isolated town on the Amazon, surrounded by rain forest and accessible only by plane or riverboat. Faucett Airlines had a weekly non-stop flight in from Miami. The town dates from the rubber boom and has a pleasant air of frozen history. A distinctive feature of Iquitos is the local taxi - an open three wheel vehicle made of motorcycle parts, called a motocar. We rode these adventurous vehicles into town while our luggage followed in a pickup truck.

After overnighting at an old hotel on a bluff overlooking the Amazon we again mounted motocars for the trip to the charter float plane which would take us to the camp. The plane was a military Twin Otter chartered for the purpose. The luggage turned out to be too heavy to go in the plane with us, but some quick negotiations got a second plane to carry the tackle and clothes.

(The wind was still that morning and the water was calm in the backwater where the planes were based. Seaplanes have difficulty breaking free of the water in such conditions. It took us several futile attempts before we created enough ripples to allow us to lift off. A bit nerve-wracking.)

The flight carried us over jungle and meandering streams to our destination up the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon. There were occasional villages along the streams and some small clearings in the rain forest for gardens, but the view was mostly an unbroken canopy of tall trees.

After about an hour the plane landed on the river and nosed up to a sandbar, where we transferred to boats for a short trip up a side channel to Camp Peacock. The camp is a good-sized barge converted to a floating lodge. It has 10 single sleeping rooms, each with private facilities, including a hot shower.

The dining area, stretching the width of the barge, is covered with a high thatched roof. There is no air conditioning, but the dining area was comfortable all day and the sleeping rooms, amply fitted with fans, cooled down nicely at night. The food was varied and well prepared. While not plush, the accommodations were very comfortable for the middle of the Amazon wilderness. The staff was well trained and efficient.

We unpacked and had lunch, and then everyone was ready to go fishing. The boats were large, locally-built aluminum jon-boats with 25 horsepower motors. The fishing is in lakes off the river, presumably old river channels left behind by the meandering stream.

The lake we fished most often was connected to the river by a shallow channel, but some boats had been pre-positioned on the lake and I walked in on a cleared path through the jungle. Some of the most impressive trees had fin-shaped roots forming buttresses around their trunks.

I was the only fly fisherman in a cadre of bait-casting black bass fishermen. Initially, there was skepticism that the fish would be interested in my smaller lures, or that I would be able to handle them if they did strike. To everyone's surprise (including mine), I was top rod the first two days, catching nine the first afternoon and 16 the following day. The Peacocks were not giants (my best was 22" long and