What’s Going On in South American Fishing?
South America is a continent that is near and dear to our hearts, if nothing else because it was our 2011 trip to Brazil that really jump-started our love of “exotic” fishing travel. There remain many other countries there we want to visit, and species that we want to conquer, and the fact that it’s easy to get there and doesn’t require a big time change makes it attractive. So does the fact that most of the countries have Spanish as their primary language – we may not be fluent, but we can get by.
Accordingly, we try to keep tabs on what is occurring both in the countries we’ve visited and in the ones that are still on our bucket list. Here are some of the links that have stood out to us lately:
Per this article, “On May 2, the Colombia Congressional Court declared sportfishing unconstitutional with an 8-1 vote in favor of the ruling.” I tend to take threats against sportfishing very seriously, but I also know that some of the past articles we’ve seen on similar topics are a little bit overblown. This one seems to be legit, and it’s scary as hell. Clearly there are groups who would like to see this action – which has a year until it goes into effect – become a precedent for other countries. I know almost nothing about the Colombian constitution, political or legal systems, so I can’t opine meaningfully on how this will play out, but it bears watching.
Brazil in general, and the Amazon region in particular, suffered as the result of the pandemic. For American travelers hoping to chase peacock bass in South America, it often made travel tricky – instead of flying from Miami to Manaus, you had to go all the way south to Sao Paolo, and then backtrack north to Manaus. That added considerable complication, time and often great expense to a trip that is already quite uncertain due to water levels. Fortunately things seem to be getting better
This “holy grail of shipwrecks” could be worth more than $17 billion, according to the Washington Post. Oddly enough, for reasons described above, the Colombian treasures that I covet all have fins. Nevertheless, I understand that traveling anglers and treasure hunters are two birds of the same feather – seeking various kinds of riches that may or may not exist.
The Galapagos was already on our list of dream destinations for its historical significance and incredible biodiversity, even before we learned that it has exceptional marlin and tuna fishing. Now we want to go even more. As with many places on our list, we know that it’s a race against time before overfishing or some other factor make the location less productive or less appealing. Fortunately, there are ongoing efforts to reduce the problems in this famous area.
With all of the fighting over the rights to the Amazon’s resources, we’ve seen plenty of stories about mysterious disappearances and underhanded tactics, but this one is really scary – a journalist went missing in the unforgiving State of Amazonas. Some follow-up here. Crazy shit and we may never know what actually happened.
It’s 4,300 miles long, flows through Peru, Colombia and of course Brazil, so I find it hard to believe that there are no needs for crossings. Of course the terrain and sparsely-populated regions are part of the explanation, and I suppose in terms of keeping sections of the basin wild, this could be a good thing.
