Xingu: The Vampires of the Amazon

Xingu:

The Vampires of the Amazon

Helmut Zaderer has travelled the globe extensively in search of pristine fly fishing experiences. He loves to fly fish for giant trevally on the flats, but he is equally fascinated with fly fishing for the predators of the Amazon – including a scary-looking fish with enormous fang-like teeth.

By HELMUT ZADERER Photos by HELMUT ZADERER, LUCAS DE ZAN, VAIDAS USELIS, JAKO LUCAS and UNTAMED ANGLING

The Amazon is a giant of river, its wildlife and nature fascinating. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been obsessed with everything I’ve seen and read about the Amazon. And my enthusiasm hasn’t waned after several fishing trips into the heart of the Amazon jungle - quite the contrary!

Over the last couple of years, I’ve kept seeing images of a certain Amazonian predator fish – one with massive and sharp dagger-like teeth and a reputation for being an aggressive adversary on a fly rod. The locals call it payara, Dracula fish, sabertusk barracuda, or dogtooth tetra, but most people refer to it as a vampire fish. Whatever the name, this particular fish caught my interest and I started researching. I found out that you can catch payara in many places in the Amazon but – because they’re a migratory and somewhat sporadic fish – they’re difficult to target specifically.

As I found out, there is only one really good place where the payara can be successfully targeted with a fly rod. The remote Xingu River.

When I found out that Rodrigo Salles from Untamed Angling had set up a lodge there, I was sold. I immediately contacted Rodrigo, and he provided me with a bit of background information.

Rodrigo relayed the story of how he found the Xingu River, came to acknowledge it as a top destination for payara, and how he convinced the local people, the Kayapos, to start up a joint sustainable lodge project:

A concept that would be mutually beneficial for everyone involved: the natives, visiting fly fishermen – and the fish stocks.

What is the Xingu River Project?

The Xingu Lodge is a natural extension of Untamed Angling’s equitable partnership with Kayapo natives.

Untamed Angling researched so many different waters all over the amazon seeking for the best payara fly fishing destination before coming across River Xingu. And as pure luck would have it, it showed some 40 miles away from Untamed Angling’s first lodge with the Kayapos – the Kendjam Lodge at the Iriri river, which is a tributary of Xingu river.

As Rodrigo explains:

“The kayapos always told me that I must come and see with my own eyes how amazing the payara fishing was on the Xingu River. And in 2016 I came for the first time. I came back several times to scout the place and the river proved to be the most consistent payara fishery we have seen in thee Amazon!

In 2019 we set up an exploratory season with 5 weeks of visiting fly fishermen there and decided to build a lodge with Untamed Angling standards. The pandemic hit us in 2020 but finally we finished the lodge in 2021 and we were able to run an incredible season!”

The Xingu Experience

Jako Lukas, who joined the trip for Yellow Dog as host, my friend and film-maker Vaidas Uselis, Rodrigo Salles, Pamela Wendhausen and I had a week on us to catch payara.

The journey started off with a small plane ride landing in the middle of the Amazon jungle. As soon as we got out, we were surrounded by the local Kayapos.

It was solid proof of a very healthy eco-system

The Kayapos are known as the warriors of the Amazon and for their bravery in defending their land and rivers. They live in a complex of 4 different indigenous lands in the Xingu and Iriri river basin. Now, the fly fishing tourism project with Untamed Angling is their most important livelihood involving more than 14 villages in a sustainable project that is aimed at protecting their land from illegal mining and logging activity.

Those have been major threats to their land in the past.The lodge, located directly on the river, is brand new and offers more than you would expect from a far removed place in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

Our first day began with a ceremony. We were painted by the Kayapos as if we were part of a local band of warriors. That would be our most important preparation for catching a payara. We were now ready to take on the challenge!

Fly fishing for payara

Each day we would take off with three guides, in motorboats, in order to chart new areas of the Xingu River system. The guides still had some exploring to do, but they seemed to know exactly where to find the fish. Every day we would see myriads of payara rise and roll. But – as it turned out – it wasn’t exactly easy to get a bite. Sometimes, it seemed downright impossible.

Payara might look like something out of the twilight zone with their devilish looks and ghostly demeanor, but they

are fish like any other fish. And eventually, they must feed. When they did, not surprisingly, we would see blitzes and bursts of activity and suddenly our flies would be attacked with a brute force that I had no idea any Amazonian fish was capable of. We were mostly getting our bites in 10 – 20 meters of depth and had to work full sinking fly lines to get there. The guides have later discovered that, when the bite is really on, the payara can be caught in the surface – on noisy poppers.

The locals call it payara, Dracula fish or dogtooth tetra, but most people refer to it as a vampire fish

Spoilt for choice

Whenever we got tired of fishing with the sinking lines and found ourselves in need of a change, we would take advantage of the great species variety in the area and target different types of pacu, bicuda, peacock bass, and wolffish.

Using 5 and 7-weight fly rods and floating lines, we enjoyed some hectic fishing that – at least for a while – had us forget about the sharp-fanged ghosts in the deep. Furthermore, it was solid proof of a very healthy eco-system.

At the end of the week, everyone had burned and scarred fingers from the extremely hard bites of the payara. And everyone had caught their trophy payara and had a memorable experience immersed in the jungle with all the sights, sounds, and smells that make this place so unique.

A unique experience

There is such a wealth of wildlife and as a photographer there’s plenty to keep you occupied. We saw so many different wild animals, and watching the Kayapos carry on with their lifestyle, which still hasn’t diverted too much from its historic path, was something truly unique to experience. Learning about their culture, philosophies, and way of life - and to hear the tales and stories of the Kayapo warriors would have been worth the whole trip inand of itself. It’s something I won’t forget anytime soon.

Payara

Payara, a species distributed across the Amazon basin (mainly in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela), like fast-moving water and typically reside in rapids and cascading water below waterfalls. They’re a carnivorous fish that feeds on shrimps, minnows, tetra, piranhas, and other Amazonian prey items.

Especially when hunting prey fish, they’ll slash, pierce, and impale their prey with their fang-like teeth before picking them up and swallowing them whole.

Payara can be separated into two distinct families: Hydrolycus scomberoides and Hydrolycus armatus. While both fish are similar in appearance with their silvery flanks, laterally flattened form, and canine teeth, the latter is, by far, the biggest of the two reaching lengths of up to 120 cm and weights in excess of 15 kilos.