Getting There - Hot and Muggy Ken – Paying the Price

In about 30 to 40 minutes, and at least a half of a mile in distance, we came to our objective. It was a good-sized lake, surrounded by thick jungle. There was very little beach around the shoreline. We would have to wade out into the water to find room to cast. We separated into two teams, with Larry and Bob moving to the right and Ken and I moving to the left. This time I had made sure that each guide was carrying his own scale before we left the boats.

After about 150 feet Enrico told us to stop. This would be our first fishing spot. I could see Bob and Larry across the water, about 100 yards away around the curve of the shoreline. I rigged up my usual spoon lure and Ken put on a woodchopper. He told me that he wanted to master it. To cast correctly we had to stand about 20 feet out into the water. The bottom was muddy, but not overly deep. The mud did not reach over the top of my “New Balances”. Ken and I separated about 50 feet and we began to fish.

I watched him out of the side of my eye. He was working the woodchopper pretty good. Not as expertly as I had seen others do it, by any means, but his casts were long and the radial pattern he worked was accurate and evenly spaced. The lure generated an acceptably furious and noisy rooster tail on most of the retrieves. If the fish were there I felt certain that Ken would catch his share.

I got the first strike and it was OK, but not great. The fish fought well enough but I had no trouble pulling it in. It was a 3½ lb. Peacock. At home I would have been thrilled with a large mouthed bass (its cousin specie) of that size but here, in the jungle, it wasn’t much to write home about. Still, it was a good sign. The Peacocks were here!

It wasn’t much longer until Ken got his big strike. He got a strong hit and he set the hook. That fish took a strong run with line streaming out from Ken’s vertically held, and seriously bending, rod. Ken managed to partially turn its direction and the fish took off towards my lure, which was still in the water. I reeled in quickly in order that our lines wouldn’t cross and made it OK. That fish was a “back and forth’er”. It would repeatedly run furiously in one sideways direction and, then, double back in the opposite direction in another furious charge. It was a really fun fish to catch and I could see that Ken was smiling all during the battle. When he finally landed it, the fish weighed in at a whopping 17 lbs! Ken had caught his trophy fish. He was ecstatic.

There had been some excited noise from the area where my sons were fishing so I knew that they too were getting some action. Later, I found that Bob had caught a 10 lb. Peacock, among others.

Enrico asked us to get out, into the water, which we did. The other Nitro had followed into the passage and closely pulled in behind us. They, too, got out of their boat, into the water. The water was about waist high but the sandy bottom gave us good footing. With all six of us tugging and pulling, it didn’t take too much effort to get the front boat to a point where it was free floating. We pushed it to the other side of the bar and went back for the second boat. When both of the Nitro’s were riding freely in the inner channel, everyone re-entered his respective boat and we were underway again.