Fishing at Lake Guri

As mentioned in the previous post, I recently went fishing for Peacock Bass at Lake Guri which is only about 70-80 miles north of Angel Falls. This was my second journey into the heart of the Gran Sabana. I checked in on the website of the fishing camp, The Headwaters Fishing Club, (look at the "fishing report") and lo and behold there was a post about our fishing trip written by the proprietor of the fishing camp, Steve Shoulders. Now steve is a good ole boy from East Texas, and he can tell a story, but his account of the fishing trip is pretty straight up accurate...well as accurate as fish stories go anyway. I am not sure what prompted the first part of the post, about grammer and bodily functions, but it made for some entertaining reading. So, without further adieu, I will let Steve tell you all about our fishing trip:

It has been brought to my attention by a very good friend of mine, who for the sake of continuing that friendship, will be referred to as Mr. Word Perfect or Mr. Fishing Report Censor, depending upon which hat he wishes to wear while harassing me. Mr. WP told me that my reports were chocked full of spelling and grammatical errors, and I should do something to correct the mistakes prior to sending it out worldwide. He also continued his critique of my writing by saying certain subject matter such as bowel movements, farting, and erectile dysfunction should be left for the locker room.Well Mr. WP, I am proud to announce to the world that I have taken your advice, and corrections have been made. Although you probably won't know it since I took you off my mailing list. Now that I'm free of such unnecessary restraints, I shall forge ahead with my ever so enlightening report.Although the water level in Lake Guri continues to hold much higher than normal for this time of the year, the fish are beginning to start acting like they are supposed to in January. By that I mean they are moving into the shallows to feed, and for us that means good topwater action for some really big peacock bass.This past Monday and Tuesday, it was my pleasure to get a chance to fish with David Brown, Mike Siemer, and Dave Smith, who, and I'm not making this up, is of Hawaiian, Mexican, German, Polish, French, and Dutch ancestry. I told Dave that it must be difficult to choose who to root for at the Olympic Games.Mike and I started the trip out fishing together, and in the first hour we had already boated four peacock bass from 10-13 lbs. Yozuri Minnows and Bomber Long A's were our best big fish producers. But being a true sportsman, I tied on a Norman Bait Co. Little N in a perch pattern, and caught numerous other fish up to 9 lbs. It became quite apparent to Mike and I that every time David and Dave's boat got near us, we always hooked a big fish right in front of them. Their guide, Angel, also noticed this, and he did everything in his power not to be within the same time zone as us after the first three or four big fish. Don't you just hate an uncooperative guide, not to mention one being downright unfriendly. Irregardless (This is a nonexistent word Mr. WP need only see me use for it to cause him to fart loudly, followed by watery bowels, which in turn cause erectile dysfunction), Mike and I had a great morning fishing together, as we boated eighteen fish with nine if them over 8 lbs.That afternoon, I joined up with my new multinational friend, Dave, and we went after him a big'un to brag about. As luck would have it, fishing had slowed down considerably from the morning session, but at HFC there is no such thing as a bad session, just less than one would desire sessions. We were fishing with HFC guide, Santos, and I don't think there was a lure left in my tackle box Santos didn't tie on and try, unfortunately with little success. As the sun was just about to wish us goodbye for the day, we rounded a rocky point, and 'Shazaaam', Dave tied into a big fish on a large minnow bait. Soon Dave had his big fish in the boat, and Santos and I breathed a sign of relief. As Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over until it's over." Dave's fish was a big, beautiful female peacock bass, but you will just have to take my word for it since he hasn't sent me the photo. The last session on Tuesday, I fished with repeat client and friend, David Brown, who until that point on this trip had not been able to land anything over 9 lbs. All that was about to change, and change dramatically. Our guide, Angel, suggested David use a red headed/white bodied Chug Bug of his, and within minutes of starting, David had his first 10 lb fish in the boat. Then David proceeded to land one fish after another, while your truly turned fishing into a spectator sport. When the score reached david 7, Steve 0, I finally managed to land an 8 lb fish, which was my only fish of the afternoon. David continued landing fish, and after a few bad luck battles with some huge fish, he boated the 12 lb fish shown in the attached photo. Even though I should have been happy my client had such a great afternoon of fishing, I could only sit there watching the sun go down thinking what might have happened if I would have had a similar bait as the one Angel had loaned David. I mentioned this to Angel, and with a look on his face that only a diabolical guide could muster, he informed me that in one of my boxes there was a brand new one just like it. Since it hasn't rained more than a little sprinkle here and there, I am going to officially declare dry season upon us. This also means the super sized peacock bass are feeding heavily in the shallows, and they are suckers for baits thrown anywhere in their vicinity. Why don't you give me a call, and that bait could be yours. There are some weekday openings for groups, and only limited openings on weekends all the way into March. You do not have to be an expert fisherman to catch these fish, because my guides and I will assist you in learning all the techniques necessary to make your dream a reality. We have been doing just this thing for many, many others over the years, and I believe we are pretty darn good at it, as our record of having over 90 % of all fishermen that come to HFC catch at least a 10 lb peacock bass each and every trip. Ask any other camp to match or even come close to that. Ya'll have a GREAT week!!!!

Wow! Well said, Steve. Another fish that inhabit the waters of Lake Guri, and rivers in Venezuela in general, is the Payara. These fish look psychotic! look at the one Dave caught. Although we were not really fishing for Payara, a few jumped onto the hook. Unfortunately, I did not catch one.

Dave Brown and his Payara. Check out the teeth on that bad boy!!!

The drive out to Guri was quite arduous. It was twelve hours from Caracas. We drove through mountains near Caracas, then jungle banana plantations to the east of Caracas, then along the arid Caribbean coast, then south through the semi arid plains of the Orinoco River Valley, which is one of the big oil producing regions of Venezuela, and, interestingly, looks a lot like Texas and finally into the Sabana. Our trip included a 2.5 hour drive on a dirt road that deteriorated into waht I would charitably call a path. We were officially in the middle of nowhere. The terrain around Guri alternates between the grasslands of the Sabana and jungle. There wer times while fishing that flocks of Blur Macaws flew overhead, parrots played in the trees and Red Howler Monkeys could be heard roaring in the jungle. It was quite amazing.

The jungle along the shore of Guri.

Moriche Palms growing in the water.

Moriche Palms at sunset.

There is So Much to Write About

It seems like I never have enough time to post new entries. There are so many things we have done that I still need to post. We have been to Mochima, Coro, Puerto Cabello and I recently went fishing at Lake Guri (caught a thirteen pound Peacock Bass!). The little rock band has become quite popular, it seems like we are always in demand. My job as the CLO is great and I have signed up to be an election monitor for the up comming constitutional referendum.

I have not given up on the blog...

Angel Falls, Day 2: Part One - The Flight to Kavak

The first line of my journal entry for July 25, 2008 reads: “As I write this we are flying over the State of Bolivar in Venezuela in a single engine, six seat Cessna airplane with the wings on top. It is about the size of a VW Van with wings.” I knew we would be flying in a single engine plane on this trip, but the reality of it did not hit me until we arrived at the airport in Ciudad Bolivar, which was a most appropriate place to begin the trip to Angel Falls, being that Jimmy Angel’s airplane, the one he discovered Angel Falls while flying, is located there. This is our airplane.

I was so impressed (and by that I mean terrified) that I took about a dozen pictures of it, mainly as evidence that I actually flew in a single engine airplane. Many of you know that I am not a comfortable flier. In fact you could characterize me as a “white knuckle” flier. Nevertheless, we stuffed all of our things into the plane, behind the last row of seats, and squeezed into our seats, which afforded about as much leg room as the back seat of a sports car. In the two seats behind us were two Pemon women headed back to their village with bags full of goods, mostly groceries, recently purchased in Ciudad Bolivar. We taxied out to the runway, then the pilot latched down the small window on his left, said something in Spanish into his headset and gunned the engine. The noise was deafening and the rush of wind from the propeller blew the little window open again. The pilot latched it shut again, took a bite of the pastry he was eating for breakfast, adjusted some type of instrument and let go of the brake. Little planes do not take long to get airborne, and as we careened down the runway, bouncing up and down like we were in a dune buggy, we were suddenly airborne. The words that kept running through my head were: oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Little by little I calmed down once I realized that we were not going to fall out of the sky. I could not hear anything over the engine. We banked, climbed more and before I knew it we were underway to Angel Falls.

Once we were pointed in the right direction, due south, the pilot picked up a huge wad of money and started to count it (perhaps the revenue for the day?) Then he took a newspaper he had on the dashboard, pulled out the sports section, handed the rest to our guide who was riding shotgun (and presumably co-pilot) and they both settled in and began to read the newspaper. Apparently airplanes fly themselves. We continued to gradually gain altitude (I know because I was watching the altimeter) until we reached about 9700 ft. The pilot was navigating using a Garmin GPS just like mine. We flew over a series of hills that were like huge rocks sitting on plains and then over Lake Guri, a huge man made lake. Gradually the lake became more and more like a series of rivers, almost like a river delta, until I noticed a set of rapids, first one then more and more until there seemed to be river channels and rapids everywhere. We were over the Coroni River and were entering Tepui country. Up ahead were ominous banks of clouds which we flew straight into. We were immediately pummeled by strong winds and the little airplane was thrown about. One thing I did not realize until we were in the storm clouds was that small planes “yaw” which means the tail is pushed from side to side and the plane actually slides sideways through the air. We hit air pockets that pushed us down several hundred feet at a time (remember, I was fixated on the altimeter). Then we would hit another and bounce up a few hundred feet. We continued to bounce, drop, rise, and yaw, all the while the pilot was reading the paper and occasionally talking with our guide about something he read. Finally, he put the paper away, checked the GPS, turned on the windshield wipers (it was raining) said something into the radio and took manual control of the plane. The clouds began to break a little and I suddenly caught sight of tepuis to our left and right. Then we went back into a cloud bank. A few minutes later I saw the ground about 500 feet below us through a break in the clouds. Remember, we had been at 9700 feet. We were over Auyan Tepui.

Auyan-Tepui shrouded in mist.

The surface of the tepui is like a maze of crevasses and amazing rock formations. Eventually the maze formed into a main channel full of water. Our guide informed us that was the river from which Angel Falls gets its water. We followed the river until suddenly we flew over the edge of the tepui. Our guide turned to us and yelled “Angel Falls” and there it was we had flown right over it. The pilot executed a 90 degree banked turn, that normally would have sent me into a panic, but I was so thrilled at seeing Angel Falls, that I forgot to panic. Instead I just started firing away with the camera, shot after shot as we again approached the falls and then as we flew away from the falls. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

Angel Falls from the airplane.

We turned back to the south, went back into the clouds and after about ten minutes began a gradual descent. When we got below the cloud cover I could see that we were over a green plain dotted with clumps of plam trees. We got lower and lower, but there was no runway in sight. It finally dawned on me that we were not landing on a runway, we were going to land on the grass. We touched down, bounced a few times and rolled to a gentle stop in a light drizzle. We were in Kavak.

The little Cessna on the "landing strip" in Kavak.

Kavak

Angel Falls Trip - Day One - Ciudad Bolivar

Day 1: Ciudad Bolivar

We got off to a late start, since we had only gone to bed a few hours earlier, but fortunately, at the uncivilized hour of 5:30 am, there is not a lot of traffic, even in Caracas. As usual, the airport experience was quite confusing. For some reason Venezuelans do not find it necessary to have a sign or other indication of which flight will be leaving from which gate. There are just a bunch of gates, no signs, no gate numbers. Apparently the preferred method is to ask others until the crowd forms a consensus as to which gate the flight will leave from. After asking around, we found our flight which was pretty uneventful. Upon arriving at Puerto Ordaz we were met by our guide and driver, Jorge, and we set out for Ciudad Bolivar. But first, we stopped by the local shopping mall to pickup Jorge’s wife and daughter. Although Jorge assured us that his wife and daughter spoke English, they mostly just sat there and smiled the whole trip. Jorge, however, was quite the chatterbox. He talked about anything and everything. I was in the front seat so I had to pretend to be interested. Greg, who was in the back seat with the smiling women, got to look out the window and nap during the hour long drive.

The bridge over the Rio Orinoco

Both Puerto Ordaz and Ciudad Bolivar are on the Orinoco River in Central Venezuela. (See the map below). The land in that area is flat with low scrub brush, much like Texas. In fact, there was a thunderstorm in the distance and the whole effect really did remind me of the area between Austin and Houston. We got to Ciudad Bolivar and had a tasty lunch of Pernil (roasted pork) and then went to a museum dedicated to the works of a famous Venezuelan artist, Jesus Soto. He is a primarily a sculptor, who has a keen interest in optical illusions. Learn more about the Jesus Soto museum here. Here is a link about Jesus Soto.

Goofing around at the Museo Jesus Soto

Sitting on the wall of El Zamuro

From there we went to the Museo San Isidro, which was a house that El Libertador stayed in while he was in Angostura (later renamed in honor of Bolivar). There was an important battle that took place near there. We then went to visit El Zamuro, a fortress used by Bolivar’s army to hold off the Royalists, then Plaza Bolivar, the Parochial House, House of Congress of Angostura and the Cathedral. The Cathedral is famous as the place where one of Bolivar’s top generals, Manuel Piar, was executed for treason. We spent the night at a very nice hotel, the Hotel La Cumbre, which had a very interesting collection of “dada” art. The proprietor of the hotel seemed to have a particular interest in old cash registers that he made into “art” apparently with a sledgehammer. We had a good meal in the restaurant and were entertained by a group of people singing traditional Venezuelan songs. The people were sitting around a table and among them had several guitars. Others at the table kept the rhythm by drumming on the table. The group included several children. A microphone was passed from person to person, each taking a turn at singing. One of the children even sang a very cute song. After dinner we sat by the pool for a while enjoying the cool evening breeze and then settled in for a much needed night’s rest after a very long day.

Greg and I at the Museo Jesus Soto