Ep 147: Fishing in Brazil, Tarpon Tournaments, and Metalworking, with Amanda Willshire
Amanda Willshire is a full-time metal artist and part-time guide in Colorado. She has also competed in the Ladies Tarpon Tournament in Florida and recently got back from fishing in Brazil. In this episode, we talk about her metal fish art, fishing for tarpon in Florida, fishing experiences and mishaps in South America, and much more.
Instagram: @awdart
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing in the backcountry. This is episode 147 with Amanda Willshire on fishing in Brazil, tarpon tournaments, and metalworking. I start every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got introduced to fly fishing. So walk me through how you got introduced to fly fishing in the outdoors. So I grew up fishing.
Amanda
My papa, my grandfather taught me to fish since like when I could first walk. And I always loved it. We would get a cane pole, dig up some night crawlers, catch like little brim and stuff, and then go catch catfish using those. And when I got older, I had an interest in fly fishing and asked him about it. And he said, you just want to catch those fancy damn trout, don't you? And I said, well, yeah, but I don't want to, you know, he said, you know, I never caught, I don't like to catch trout because they don't even taste good. So fast forward, I guess, four or five years after college. And he called me up and he spoke with a stutter and he called me Mandy. And he said, Mandy, they've given me six months to live or nine months to live. So I'd better teach you to fly fish. And so over the next several months, I would go out and make his favorite breakfast on Sundays, which was red-eye gravy and grits with a side of ham and over easy egg. And we would go out to the backyard for the first two weeks. And he taught me to cast. He stuck a stick in the yard, had me casting at it, would back me up every once in a while. And then after he was satisfied with my cast, he took me over to the pond and I'd catch brim on popping bugs.
Katie
So he knew how to fly fish.
Amanda
Yep. He knew how to fly fish. He used to fly fish for bass and brim and crappie. Okay. So he wasn't against fly fishing.
Katie
He just wasn't into trout, but he knew that if you wanted to fly fish, maybe it was because you were interested in trout and he didn't want to have part of that.
Amanda
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I think he was just giving me a hard time. But eventually he taught me. And at the end, my grandmother would roll him out in the wheelchair and he would critique my cast. And yeah.
Katie
And was this all in Colorado? Did you grow up here?
Amanda
Nope. Grew up in Arkansas.
Katie
Oh, okay. Okay. I've heard good things about the fishing in Arkansas. I've never been there to fish. But is it a pretty good place to grow up as an angler?
Amanda
Oh, yeah, for sure. Lots of fishing, lots of water, lots of lakes. My grandparents had a pond. When I was, like, wee little, we would go across the street to Mr. Haney's place and fish out of his pond. Always for catfish, brim and catfish.
Katie
And what drew you to fly fishing? If he didn't, you know, initiate this relationship with, you know, teaching you and everything, what sparked your interest in learning how to do it?
Amanda
It was reading A River Runs Through It.
Katie
Oh, okay. Yep. I could see how that would spark something. I saw the movie before I read the book, but I've read the book several times since then. So I understand the passion there. Yeah. And you guide now, correct? Yep. I guide for Front Range Anglers. So how did you make that transition? How did you end up in Colorado and decide that that was the path you wanted to take?
Amanda
When I was a teenager, my family came out here to ski over spring break. and I told my family the first year we came out that I would live here some year someday. And fast forward to when I was 29, I moved out here and I've been here ever since.
Katie
Nice. And you just found a shop?
Amanda
Well, actually, I worked for myself. I did graphic design for a long time.
Katie
Oh, okay. So art is then kind of a comprehensive part of your life then. It sounds like you did graphic design for a while and then you started to guide, but you still do art. I don't want to say on the side because I don't know how much of a role that plays in your career, but tell me about your metalworking art. Actually, that is my full-time job. I guide part-time.
Amanda
Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, the art keeps me really, really busy. I do a lot of business-to-business work, but then I also make a lot of steelfish. So yeah, I introduced these steelfish back at the 2020 fly fishing show at the United Women on the Fly fashion show, the first one that they had. And so some of the models are carrying these steelfish that I made that I just kind of, I came up with the idea because the Mayfly Projects had a tournament, a, it was a one fly or two fly tournament. I can't remember. I think it was held in Pennsylvania, but they wanted trophies made. And so I made a trophy and I took their logo and I layered it. I broke it up into layers and it just looked really cool. And so I thought, well, I could do this with fish too. I could delineate, you know, kind of like a topographic map of fish as they come out from the side. And so I started making those and I've made a couple hundred since then.
Katie
And how did you get introduced to metalworking? That feels like something that you don't just decide one day, you know, I'm going to become a metal artist. How did you get into that?
Amanda
So I made the transition kind of slowly through. I used to love drinking beer and I used to love biking. And I, I biked for the left-hand biking team. We raised money for MS and we would do centuries and things around the country. So I made really good friends with like Roe, like we were talking about. That's how I met Andrew. And started doing all these things with like mural type art with bottle caps. And so I started doing work with Left Hand with several breweries around the States and then started working with Oscar Blues, who has canned products. And so I came up with an idea to do a community driven art piece at one of their festivals. And then we kind of carried this on for a few years where I would paint a mural and then I would cut out the different colored cans. And then people during the festival would come up and hammer the colors per the mural, the different colors within that mural. So kind of a color by numbers, but paint by cans sort of a thing. Color by cans. And so a large mural would be creative, but it would have many people helping to make it. And then we would auction this off and raise money for different organizations. So Oscar Blues approached me one day after doing a couple of these things and asked me to create a traveling recycling receptacle. And so I had always wanted to learn to weld. And so I designed this 12-foot man named Crush who had bike parts for legs and a mesh torso. And you could see the beer cans piling up in his torso as the festival went on. And so they approved it and I called up my buddy Charles and asked him if he'd teach me to weld and help me make this. And I have been welding ever since.
Katie
Wow, that's really cool. And what you're describing sounds really interesting. Like are there pictures of this online that people can find and see the trash man filling up?
Amanda
Yeah, exactly. He had like dreadlocks for hair that were made out of bike chain and like curly pieces of steel. It was pretty cool. Wow, that sounds really cool.
Katie
By chance, have you made any art for the flyathlon? Because I feel like I've seen bottle cap things around. And now I'm thinking the trophies, I think have metal fish on them. So I'm not sure where all you have your fingers in things. But what you're describing sounds really familiar to me.
Amanda
So the trophies, his friend works for a recycling company. And whatever fish, metal fish that he finds in the recycling, he gives it to Andrew. And he makes a trophy from that. But I have made a big sign out of bottle caps that was like the starting line at the Lake Fork. I think he used it at the – yeah. And then I made the belt buckles for him for the trout man and trout woman.
Katie
Oh, really?
Amanda
Yep.
Katie
Oh, that's so cool. I had no idea. I can picture that bottle cap. I want to say it might be on the website too. There's some picture of it that's floating around, wrecking the Flyathlon somewhere, I think. Right on. That's really cool. and so you've just kind of run with that then you've you've taken this welding skill and turned it into a full-time career now and you sell metal metal fish did you say it's like business to business, a lot of it?
Amanda
I do a lot of business to business signs but that the steel fish are more for individuals gotcha some are for businesses but yeah mostly just yeah to individuals and sometimes people will send me like a a photo of their favorite catch and I can recreate that and steal for them as they're holding it and everything
Katie
Do people buy a generic like I want a tarpon on my wall or is it like hey I've got this tarpon and I've got dimensions and I want you to you know recreate this so I can remember this specific fish? it sounds like you can do kind of customized almost almost like you got a taxidermy fish but you know it's made out of metal instead
Amanda
exactly yeah. I do a lot of both. Yeah.
Katie
And how long does a fish take? I'm sure it depends a lot on the size and everything, but like, you know, you could tell me it takes two days. You could tell me it takes a year and I would believe either of those things. So like, you know, what's the process look like?
Amanda
It really depends on the size and the detail. So tarpons, obviously I like to make those with their scales. So that takes a lot longer. Just more welds, more, more parts. One tarpon, even a small one, has about 250 scales. So just kind of give you an idea. That takes a lot of prepping the metal and everything to get it welded too. So it takes a long time. So to do a tarpon, it will take me three or four days.
Katie
Oh, okay. And do you do any species? If someone shows up with, I caught this thing, and you're like, I've never seen that before, will you take a stab at it?
Amanda
Yep. I've done a lot of different species at this point. A lot, a lot. Rupert tarpon, bonefish, permit, all the trouts. Let's see. Tuna, roosterfish. I haven't done a sailfish yet. That sounds like it could be cool. I haven't done a barracuda yet. I think a barracuda would be cool too.
Katie
Do you have a favorite just based on like, you know, how tarpon just because of the scales or?
Amanda
Yeah, I just, I love those fish. They're my favorite fish by far. My favorite, favorite, favorite to fish for. My favorite, they're just amazing looking. They're beautiful. They're prehistoric. They're just, the way they jump, the way they fight is the way they eat. They look up, they kind of look like puppy dogs. They, yeah, I just, I love them.
Katie
I assume you have, you know, fished for them many times then if they're your favorite. Do you have, you know, particular places you like to go fish for tarpon or trips that come to mind as like, you know, a memorable time you chased them?
Amanda
Well, I was invited to do the ladies tarpon tournament in Isla Morada. So I did that for the first time last year. And fishing the keys for them is pretty special. It's pretty technical, but it's really amazing to see the amount of tarpon, the migratory tarpon that convene there to make babies. It's pretty cool.
Katie
Tell me more about this tournament. Like what goes on there?
Amanda
Oh, it's so cool. It's 25 teams, one angler, one guide. I think this year is going to be the 48th year, and I'm going to fish it again this year. Yeah, I was asked a couple of years ago and I'd never fished the Keys before, but I've always loved tarpon. I fell in love with them the first time I fished with them in Puerto Rico with Captain Pochi Rosario. I just, I absolutely love him. So I really didn't know anything about fishing in the Keys. I had heard it was pretty hard. And so I went down with a friend of mine who had like a little friends group kind of going on and got into them with, you know, just like saw them daisy chaining up and lining, you know, by the dozens following each other. The females are huge. The males are no longer than four feet. It's just, it's really cool to see the way, I mean, this whole phenomenon and they're kind of, they're waiting on this, this worm hatch to happen. Right. And whenever the worm hatch happens, depending on, I think it's a moon phase and a tidal phase. And I experienced, I got to experience that the first year I went, that was two years ago. Thousands of these worms are just swimming through the water and hundreds of tarpon are gulping them up. And they're believed to be, I guess, somewhat of an aphrodisiac. So they gobble these worms up and then they go way offshore and spawn. So they take off, you know, but they're all right there. And I got to fish for him. And I got my first big tarpon keys tarpon during that one night with my, my friend. And it was just, it was fantastic. And I'd had a couple of follows, but you know, no takes before that. And so she's like, you know what, Amanda, we're going to, we're going to eat a worm and we're all going to eat worms. She and I, and the guide, and we're going to change your luck. So we all ate worms and they're super salty. And I caught a fish. Well, there you go. That's the secret. Yep. So last year, I was my first time fishing the latest tarpon tournament. It's really, it's a really cool historical tournament. A lot of talented, talented anglers fish it a lot of some of the best women in the world, like Wesley Locke, Jillian Bird, Shonda Rummel, a lot of like really, really talented women fish it. Kaylee Fordyce, you know, so I feel, you know, very lucky to be a part of it. Last year, we kind of got duped by the weather. There was a tropical storm. So when you're doing this kind of fishing, it all revolves around sight fishing. So you're watching these fish come in from a long ways away and trying to line up on them. And with no sunlight, there's no sight fishing. So it was a lot of blind casting, a lot of yeah, a lot of heartache. Are you using worm flies? Yep. We're using little worm flies. Interesting. Yep. I learned that the two-hand retrieve last year.
Katie
And how do you separate your worm from, it sounds like the, you know, zillions of other worms that are out there?
Amanda
Well, when you're, that only happens one day. I just got to, I got lucky and got to experience that last year. When we're fishing the tournament, it actually did happen one of the nights of the tournament. So that was another double whammy against people catching fish is that a second worm hatchet happens, which is kind of a phenomenon. Usually only one happens. And the fish went offshore and spawned again. So they were not only we couldn't see them, but what little fish were there, I guess. I mean, they were mostly offshore spawning.
Katie
Oh, okay. So it's like, it's good to be there when the worms, like the worms are there, but you don't like, you don't really want to fish for them like the day after the worms are there because they've all packed up and left.
Amanda
Oh, that's, yeah, that's weird. And then you give them, you give them a couple of days and then they come back.
Katie
Okay. And when they come back, you're fishing for them with, I assume like regular tackle.
Amanda
With worms. Yeah.
Katie
Oh, still with worms.
Amanda
They're still keyed in on them. Yeah.
Katie
Oh, okay. Okay. I've never heard of this. I mean, I'm not, I'm not a tarpon angler by any means. I've gone once, but it was not, it was not the keys. So you have never heard of this worm phenomenon. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Well, tell me about your recent trip to Brazil, because it sounds like you've done a lot of traveling lately. I've heard Brazil and Mexico. I don't know if there's any other trips in there, but I'd love to hear about your trip to Brazil kind of from start to finish, you know, planning it, the logistics of getting down there and everything. So maybe just give me a 30,000 foot view of, you know, why Brazil? How did this trip come about?
Amanda
So I met Rodrigo Sales a couple of years ago, and he saw my art and he really liked it. And he wanted me to recreate his world record in steel. So I built it. I delivered it to him at the last year's fly fishing show. And he loved it so much. He said, Amanda, you come to Brazil. You have to come to Brazil now. You come to Brazil. I love the fish. I'll take it. We'll hang in the boat. And so, I ended up booking a trip and, with my partner Renee and, he had luckily had a couple of cancellations the first week of November. So we, we grabbed that up and, I told Renee, Renee likes to fish, but not as much as I do. And she doesn't practice. I practice quite a bit, you know, especially since I love saltwater so much. And I said, okay, we're going to have to get out in the field and work on your casts because it's going to be a lot of long casts. That's, you know, from what I've heard, it's like the, it's the kind of trip. It's a thousand casts a day, right? Unless you see them, I've heard you can, and we did experience this. You can see them cruising up the beach. And what are them? Peacock bass. Yeah. Peacock bass. And so I came up with this idea that I thought it would be kind of fun to get Renee to entice her to get out, you know, and cast. And so, and she was good about coming out and casting with me. And I just wanted to kind of up, you know, the challenge. And so I thought, why not get a remote control car and cut out the shape of a printout of a peacock bass, you know, a big peacock bass, like we were fishing for on either side. And then we would take turns driving this little peacock bass and casting to it. with cone set up so that we could tell you know what distance they were at and stuff so it actually helped her cast a lot I'd like a ton a ton and cool thing on the trip we're fishing it's the second to last day and we're with this guy his name is rafael and he's been there and he does a lot of research they all do all the guides do a lot of research they keep logs of how fish how big the fish are the length the girth and then they tag them so that if they're caught again, then they can measure them again and see the growth and everything and judge where they're caught. And so Renee and I were, so with peacock bass, if you're not just blind casting, sometimes the parents will bring the fry up to swim around and that creates almost a bubble effects on the surface. And so Raphael had spotted one of those bubble effects. So there. And I put one cast just over him, went through nothing. Renee put a cast just kind of to the side of him, go through, boom, she's on. And she's on with like the big male. And this thing is huge. So it ended up being 20 and a half pounds. I can't remember. I think it was 87 and a half centimeters. So she jumps in this crazy murky water to get the photo, beautiful photo, you know, up, get in the boat. Rafael goes, all right, we got to go to the beach to rinse off. And then we're back to fishing again. So had a couple of shots on some other, had, you know, some takes, but no other fish to the boat that day. So later that night we're having cocktails and everybody's, you know, catching up and telling their fish stories of the day. And Rafael comes over and says, Amanda, do you have video from, you know, us measuring the fish? I want to verify the tag number? And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so watch the video and he wrote down, he's like, I caught this same fish back in 2022. Oh, wow. And yeah. And it's grown, you know, X and out. And so that was a really, really cool bonding experience, you know, to have that happen with Renee and just to see her improve her cast and then catch this really, you know, cool fish.
Katie
How often are they recatching tagged fish that they've gotten before?
Amanda
I think it was 3%.
Katie
Okay. So it's not super common. This is an anomaly that she got the same one that he had caught. Exactly, yeah. What was the fishing like? By that I mean, are you in a boat, I assume, fishing for it? But it sounds like you jumped in the water once you caught it. So you are getting in the water here and there, but it's not a wade trip.
Amanda
Right. Sometimes if you pull up on a beach and you just want to fish from the beach, You can catch little butterfly peacocks, which are a smaller version of them. They don't have the full stripes going down. They have kind of little dots, just a different kind of peacock. But it's mostly from the boat.
Katie
Okay. And is it unnerving to get in the water?
Amanda
Sometimes. There are crocodiles, even though they seem to be kind of spooky.
Katie
Is it like, is it, I mean, I assume it's not too deep because you're getting in it. But I'm just picturing this kind of like big murky river. But it sounds like I might be off base there if you're jumping in and, you know, not over your head.
Amanda
We're fishing like lagoons and stuff. So they can pull up in the shallow parts.
Katie
Ah, okay. Parts, yeah.
Amanda
Yeah, so I caught a really beautiful, what's called a paka'asu, which is a non-breeding peacock bass. So it's a little bit grayer with more yellow, I think, on it. At least mine did. And we got out. It was kind of a hard sand bottom, sandy clay bottom. So it was super easy to walk on. It was about two to three feet deep. And it's kind of tea colored because of the vegetation around.
Katie
Okay. So it's not like chocolate milk colored. You can kind of see through it a little bit. Right. Okay.
Amanda
I mean, there are some parts that are chocolate milk. But a lot, you know, where you get out, you would prefer to get in the clear stuff for sure.
Katie
Gotcha. Gotcha. And how long were you there?
Amanda
A week.
Katie
Is that the right amount of time? Like if somebody is like, I want to go to Brazil and catch fish. Is one week the right amount of time? Would you have stayed longer if you had the time to do that?
Amanda
Well, this is a very particular trip. It's called the Rio Marie. And you fly in on a float plane into the middle of the jungle on the Marie River. And then you get aboard a liveaboard for a week. And then so it's really week increments at a time. So Sunday to Sunday.
Katie
Okay. Okay. So a week is like the option.
Amanda
Right. I'm sure you could stay two weeks, but you would be waiting on the plane. You know, it depends on the plane going in and out.
Katie
How long did you need to be away from home then to do this? Like if were you gone a week or was it a week on the liveaboard and you had to do kind of travel on both ends?
Amanda
Travel on both ends for sure.
Katie
And is that is an easy process?
Amanda
It was fairly easy. We flew into Colombia just to have a couple of days there, one night to experience Bogota. and then I learned the hard way that you cannot check rods or you cannot travel you cannot put them in the overhead you have to check every rod in South America in fact so check your rods don't get stuck like I did I got stuck and I I'm learning Espanol yeah I just got back from Mexico and I've been speaking kind of Spanglish you know but I learned the hard way that you cannot travel with your rods with you you have to check those things
Katie
so why is that?
Amanda
I have no idea
Katie
just a country or?
Amanda
yeah actually I don't know if it's country to country or if it's an entire continent thing
Katie
I mean it's it's pretty obvious what it is I i know that some people right when they've never seen a rod two before they're like what is that but as soon as you open it up it's like oh you can't hurt anybody with this thing so I'm i'm wondering what the logic is so what what happened to you like if you try to carry one on and got stopped and had to check it? Was that it?
Amanda
I tried to carry, no, I tried to carry four rides on and no posibilidad, no posibilidad, no posibilidad. And that was after I'd gone through immigration. So I was stuck in this weird between the TSA of Spain, I mean, Colombia and getting back through to the area where the airlines were. So they, and in my using a translate app, trying to speak, you know, back and forth. And they were very, very stern. They sent me back to go through immigration as if I had just landed, but I had just landed yesterday. So I, and there was a huge line because this was a Friday night. And so I am sprinting saying, you know, sorry, pardon, I'm going to miss my flight, sprinting through all these people and they're letting me go. It was, they're very nice about it. They get up to immigration and she doesn't understand. She gets a supervisor. They said, no, you can't. You have to go back up to where you just came from. And it's about a half a mile. I mean, I'm running a long ways, right? So I run back up and I try and find an agent and I find an agent. She's talking to some other people and I start to tag along with them to go out thinking that that's what I'm supposed to do. And nope, they stopped me and said, you hadn't talked to her. I said, but she's the airline that I need. I thought I was supposed to find her and follow her. And they said, nope, because that's what the people downstairs had told me to do. So I got stuck again. I had to beg for forgiveness from the manager at the TSA area. And he walked me out. I ran, checked the bag, ran back. They all remembered me. And they said, yes, lady, you can come in, lady. Yes, lady, you can come in, lady. And I made the flight with like 15 minutes to spare.
Katie
Okay. So for anyone traveling down there, it sounds like you can, you can save a lot of headache by checking your rods and I guess just check those rods, package them well enough that they're not going to get broken in the transit. Cause I agree. I've, I haven't done a ton of flying to fish, but when I do, I prefer to have my rod on me on the plane. I'll throw, I'll throw other stuff in the bag that would be more easily replaced when I'm getting to my destination in case of, you know, luggage loss, but rods I've always thought of as like very much a carry on item.
Amanda
Yeah. Nope. Not so. And I've also heard just a, just a side. I've also heard that flying out of Tulum, you can't travel with them either. You have to check them.
Katie
Huh? So it might be a good idea then to really like research this ahead of time. Cause it sounds like, you know, if it, if it happens to you that you get caught, not caught makes it sound like you were doing something really bad, but like if you get caught, you know, trying to bring a rod on in a place that you can't, it could really mess up your trip if you're like trying to catch a connecting flight or something like that. So either research or just go ahead and check it. Go ahead and check it.
Amanda
Yeah. Get a good rod case, you know. What do you recommend for that? Do you have a good rod case? I do, actually. It's the new Riversmith from their Convoy collection. It is sort of a carry-on size just outside of it, but no rod case is actually carry-on size. But I take all of my rods out of my tubes and I just put them in. It's super stout. They do some funny videos testing their products. So you might want to check those out. But yeah, I love that new bag.
Katie
How many rods does it carry?
Amanda
I put five in. I could probably carry eight or nine easily. Oh, wow. Okay. And reels too?
Katie
And eight or nine reels. Yeah. Okay. That sounds pretty nice. Tell me about the gear you took because it sounds like it took quite a bit of gear. Was that for backup purposes or were you fishing for enough range of species that you were like, I need different types, different weights of rod or something like that?
Amanda
So we had talked to some friends that had just been down there and they recommended, they said that they were only using nines, but I brought an eight to kind of warm up on if Renee wanted something lighter, which we ended up using those for the butterflies because they're smaller. The big peacocks, the Asus can get huge as Renee's attested to, But I brought a 10 just in case, just to, you know, and I ended up actually using it the last day because you're doing a lot of really long cast using an intermediate sync line. So I put that 9 on my 10 and my arm was a lot happier. But I worked on my cast a lot, so that was good.
Katie
Yeah, and I'm sure Renee got even more practice doing it over and over and over again there. Exactly. How spooky are the peacock bass?
Amanda
um well if you hit them on the head like I did a couple of times they're a little spooky but sometimes so my guide recommend you know he told me where to cast and I put it in the spot he said and that was about a foot away from the peacock and it was a big cruiser on the beach and it spooked like not as it hit the water but when the it was sinking down and the bass saw it spooked. And he said that was not indicative that usually, and I've experienced that fishing bass here, especially on nest. They're pretty aggressive usually, but usually it would just hit it very hard as soon as it saw it, but it didn't. Ran away.
Katie
Were they pretty aggressive in general? Like are they, would you call it like an easy fish to catch if you do everything right? You know, it's going to play ball or is it like a, oh, you have to try like a hundred times and then finally one decides that it wants it?
Amanda
Maybe not a hundred times, but especially when you're casting into when they're fishing or when they're taking their fry swimming. If you spook them, one of the guides said, actually, if you spook them, they will fill their mouths up with the fry and go down. So they'll just disappear. So it just depends. Like, are you throwing the right fly? They really love to use one fly only. Although I used a fly tied by Matt Winkler. He used to work at Charlie's. He ties for Umpqua now. He tied me these beautiful flies to take. I mean, but they're huge and heavy. And so we'd been casting at this one particular floating, you know, bubbly thing for a while, not spooked them. So Jorge changed up my fly to that huge one. First cast him, boom, fish on. so you know it's I guess they're fishing they have you know they have to do their job too
Katie
I think I need to make like a scale for this of like bluegill to I don't know permit you know like when you throw something in for bluegill they all come rushing over and like fight over who gets to eat it and then permit it's like I don't know I put this fly in front of like 30 different fish and finally something took
Amanda
nope not permit not permit at all I just had that experience last week. They were follow, follow, follow, investigate, investigate, investigate, but no, not today.
Katie
So is that what you were fishing in Mexico? Yep. In Tulum? I'm just asking because you've mentioned Tulum before. Is that where you were?
Amanda
No, I was down in Punta Allen.
Katie
I mean, I want to hear about this trip, but if there's anything else about Brazil that you'd like to share. Actually, one more thing I want to know about Brazil is in these foreign countries, I like to know like what the fishing culture is like there. You know, do people find eating fish to be normal or catch and release to be normal? What's the vibe, I guess, about fishing? Is it touristy? Is it not touristy? Just overall, what's it like?
Amanda
So the fly fishing trips there are pretty special. People eat the fish a lot. We ate peacocks that were caught and even butterflies and peacocks. But non-spotting ones, I think. What else So we eat arapaima, which is really good. And that's another kind of a sport and eat and fish sport. And I think Rodrigo has one of, I don't know actually how many fly fishing lodges are down there. But he has an arapaima specific lodge. And a couple of our friends went there afterwards and really had a blast. They're kind of like the freshwater tarpon.
Katie
I was going to say they look kind of like tarpon.
Amanda
Yeah, they're pretty cool. We did this funny. So you fly into Manaus and then they take you in the float plane over to the mothership from Manaus. And the day that you get into Manaus or the day after you get into Manaus, we got in at, I think, 4 a.m. in the morning. Slept a couple of hours and did this tour, right? And we swam with pink dolphins, pink freshwater dolphins, which was kind of a trip. A guy held up fish and you can see why they eat a lot, a lot of fish. Like when you see them permit fishing, you're probably not going to see a permit, right? Because they eat permit. And they have huge, huge snouts, a lot of teeth, really powerful. And they would just, they bump you in the water, not a care. And then we went to an arapaima farm and we would take these cane type poles with a piece of twine and just a tight on piece of fish and feed these fish and they would jump out of the water and you know it's a fun touristy thing to do but just cool to see him up that you know up close like that
Katie
yeah you said people eat arapaima. I wouldn't have guessed that not or not that I wouldn't have guessed that people eat them but if I just look at one they don't look appetizing to me not that you can always tell that about a fish but I know they're so like bony and scaly I just would have imagined that their meat is I don't know tough I guess. did you eat it?
Amanda
yeah and it was good. We had it in soup I think
Katie
all right we'll learn something new every day I guess. Yeah. So moving on to Mexico, tell me, tell me about your trip there. It sounds like you're fishing for permit at least and maybe other species as well.
Amanda
Yeah. I had a last minute invitation with my friends, Katie and Cooper. And we went down to a friend of our Lily's, another Lily's one of the best anglers in the world. Went down to her lodge, her and Jose's lodge down in Punta Allen. It was just like a four day trip. Went for, went for permit. We saw a lot a permit they followed. They just wouldn't eat. Caught a lot of bonefish. Didn't see my favorite tarpon because we spent a lot of time going for permits. Not landed, but I got my first barracuda on that I was actually trying to fish for, big barracuda. That was a lot of fun. I didn't realize that they jumped so much. That was cool. Yeah, had a great time. I've been down to Punta Allen quite a bit.
Katie
When you say that you caught the first barracuda that you were trying to catch, were you plagued by a bunch of tiny little nuisance barracudas the whole time?
Amanda
Yeah. The ones that they'll go for your gotchas and then break you off because they don't have the steel leader on.
Katie
I've only gone saltwater fishing one time, one trip. But I remember seeing those little, I don't know, they're just, they harass you.
Amanda
Yeah. You get to, to tell the difference between those and bones really quick. Yeah. They have the black tips, you know, but sometimes they just sneak in there and yeah, they're fast.
Katie
Did you, did you catch any other, other little species while you're there or mainly just going for the big three? It sounds like you didn't have a chance at tarpon, but, were you mainly focused on those or, you know, do you catch, do you kind of catch like whatever's there?
Amanda
No, yeah, well, I did this trip. We went for, robalo for snook. And I had a couple of shots at those, but they were way, way up in the mangroves. And so it's hard to get my fly up in there. I caught a really nice, what they call the Mayan permit, which is a jack. Oh, okay. The gods are kind of funny about that. They were disappointed in that it was, you know, we went back because we knew where the school was and they wanted to, we threw every fly at it, you know, and follow, follow, follow, and then just nothing. But so the guide on the way out to this other flyer goes, there's a big school of jacks. Want to catch something? I was like, hell yeah, let's just catch something.
Katie
Did you find that that, or have you found in your years of saltwater fishing that the guides tend to kind of refer to these other species as like, eh, you know, do you want to go catch that? Because like when I was there, I was like, I want to catch anything, like anything at all, I will be happy to catch. I just want something in the end of my line.
Amanda
It depends on your guide. It really depends on your guide. Some are very permit specific. They really want to stick to that. And some are, you know, what do you want to go catch? And if by the end of the day, you haven't gotten a shot at anything, then, you know, just want you to have a couple of shots at something and they'll take you to do that.
Katie
So that's, that's interesting to me because I feel like as I used to guide and, you know, it was kind of about like, what is the, what does the client want? And I'm sure you, you know, you experienced that as a guide too. But I, you know, when we, when we went saltwater fishing, I did feel like a pressure, like my guide wanted me to catch a tarpon. And I was like, I don't care what I catch. And I felt like there was sometimes a bit of a clash of like, no, I'm telling you that I don't care what I catch. And I want to go chase that fish over there. And he was like, no, we're going to go chase tarpon. And it was kind of like a weird dynamic, but I got the impression that that was a little bit more common in saltwater. The guides kind of like want you to go catch these, these famous species. And I don't, I don't experience that as much in freshwater.
Amanda
So it depends on the conditions too. So one reason why your guide may have wanted to go for tarpon is because it was cloudy or it was windy or, you know, I mean, it just, there are a lot of factors in that. It too, maybe they had not seen a lot of permit. And so, you know, a lot of guides will say, you know, I haven't seen a permit in a while and it looks like clouds are rolling in. So let's go for tarpon and snook in the morning. And then we'll go for permit whenever the visibility's back. So, you know, there are a lot of factors that go into that too.
Katie
Sure. Maybe it's a matter of communication more than, you know, wanting to go after tarpon. It's just like conveying why would we go after this instead of this, which is part of the learning process too. As someone on a guided trip, it's like, I'm also here to learn stuff. So, you know, communicating that. Because I think that's one of the things that guides take for granted sometimes. It's like, I know why we're doing this because, duh, you know, like obviously we're going to do this. But if someone's never done it before, they might not know why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda
Like, this is what I want. We're going to go for this now because, yeah. I think a lot of the guides down there really want you to have a grand slam. Because that's like, that's the ultimate goal, right? You know, especially there. I mean, here it's kind of like, yeah, it'd be kind of cool to do. But down there, it's when that's done, it's a huge celebration. You know, like everybody's it's such a teamwork, you know, relying on your guides to have the eyes and knowing where you should look to, you know, like dividing up that the viewing area to who is, you know, has the best portion of that. I think one of the most important things to do with your guide when you first get on the boat is say, okay, give me a time and give me a distance. And if I put it there, tell me yes. If I don't, tell me to, you know, where to adjust, just because, you know, a lot of times they see stuff that you don't, and they'll tell you a time and a distance and you have to put it there and it works out.
Katie
Yeah. And one of the tips I received before I went, which I found very useful was making sure that your 50 feet is the same as their 50 feet. Cause yeah, you know, how often do you have to measure something that's 50 feet away? Like not very often. So, you know, whether the guide is right on what 50 feet is or not, you need to be on the same page as what 50 feet is. So, you know, going through the motions and saying, hey, is this where you intended me to land this fly? Or, you know, is my 50 feet a little bit different than yours? Yep, exactly. Have you gotten better at spotting fish on the flats? Because that was one thing that I was like totally unprepared for was how invisible bonefish can be. Yeah, I've gotten a lot better.
Amanda
It just takes a lot of time, you know, and learning from your guys to do that. It's like, you know, asking them what they're looking at and just having them describe that to you too. And it's just doing it a lot more too. Like on trips, it takes, you know, my eyes a couple of days to get adjusted, but I am, I'm lucky that I can do that.
Katie
Well, just to wrap up, you know, if people want to check out your art or book a trip with you at Front Range, where can they find you online?
Amanda
They can find me at awdart.com. And then if you want to book me, call Front Range Anglers, and they can get me on the calendar up there. And then on Instagram, my handle is awdart.
Katie
Awesome. Well, I might ask you for a picture of that recycling man filling up his belly with beer cans because I'd like to check it out. Maybe I can share that with folks as well. But thank you. For sure. Thank you for coming on today. It was great, you know, meeting a mutual friend of Andrew's and getting to know you a bit. So this is great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Katie. All right. That's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntame.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram at fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody. you
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