Rodrigo Salles: Untamed Angling and Pioneering Remote Fisheries

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 579 with Rodrigo Salles of Untamed Angling.

Introduction

Rodrigo Salles: The president of the association said, "Okay, Rodrigo, enough. You come with this idea. We understand — you want to do a similar project like the ones for peacock bass or other species that jump and fight the way the arapaima does. But that's not possible here. It's impossible to do this kind of fishing with this gear." And I said, "No, it is possible." They gave me five minutes. "So," they said, "with your gear, your flies, all of this stuff — if this is nonsense, drop it. Let's go tomorrow. Show us that it's possible."

Tom Rowland: This is the Tom Rowland Podcast — fascinating stories to amaze, encourage, and inspire you in fishing, fitness, and the outdoors, and we're brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. I started this podcast as a way to connect with my friends, people I admire and respect, and you. It's been a learning journey that's made me a better person, a better fisherman, a better father, and a better athlete. I'm so happy you're on this journey with me, and I'd love to hear from you with show suggestions, guest suggestions, or questions. The best way to reach me is by text — (305) 930-7346 — for the fastest response, but you can also email podcast@saltwaterexperience.com, a dedicated address just for the show. If you like the show, post about it on social media and tag me, text the link to a couple of friends who might enjoy it, and subscribe and leave a five-star review if you feel I've earned it. Everything lives at tomrowlandpodcast.com — every past episode, the How-To Tuesdays, the Full Links, and the Feature Fridays. You can find me on social media at tom_rowland on Instagram, or on our main account, saltwater_experience. Now let's get on to today's show.

Meet Rodrigo Salles of Untamed Angling

Rodrigo Salles: Hi, I'm Rodrigo Salles. This is the Tom Rowland Podcast. I'm the Brazil CEO of Untamed Angling. We are pioneering jungle fly fishing in South America.

Tom Rowland: Rodrigo, how are you?

Rodrigo Salles: Good, good. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, man, I'm glad to have you. I've heard a lot of things about you from a lot of different people, but most recently it was from Jako Lucas. We were talking about his recent arapaima trip, and just the arapaima as a jungle species — where they live, all these different things. He started telling us a story about how you've pioneered these destinations, many destinations, but the one in particular was arapaima. It sounded pretty interesting, and pretty challenging and difficult. I wonder if we could go into that and see how it went. How did you do that?

Pioneering Jungle Fly Fishing in Partnership with Indigenous Communities

Rodrigo Salles: Well, first off, the arapaima is the largest freshwater scaled fish on the planet — probably the largest freshwater fish we can catch on a fly rod. I grew up fishing in the jungle with my grandfather. I'm a civil engineer, and I've fished my whole life in the jungles of Brazil, then Argentina, and then we went to Bolivia. We are passionate about fly fishing in the jungle. Marcelo Pérez founded Untamed Angling, and I joined him in 2004. That was a dream, because it meant doing exactly what I love — fly fishing in the jungle — and running a business built around fly fishing tourism in the Amazon.

To make a long story short about how we ended up reaching and catching arapaima in the jungle: we started our lodges in Bolivia, and then in Brazil, with a concept of being partners with the local communities. The idea behind Untamed Angling is to find the best places in the jungle where we can catch these amazing species on the fly. In the Amazon jungle, the last truly protected areas are either national parks or indigenous lands. People think they can go anywhere in the Amazon because it's huge and they'll catch lots of fish. That might have been true thirty or forty years ago, but over the last twenty years, things have changed a lot. It's not like thirty years ago, when you could just grab a boat, go to any river, and catch lots of fish. Now we have intense commercial fishing, mining, and logging, and really the best, most untouched places left are the indigenous lands and national parks.

So with that in mind, we started building partnerships with the natives where we're really partners in what we do — it's like a joint venture. They do their part, which is taking care of their land and helping us with a lot of the operation, and we share in the whole process of running the lodges. We operate together. This concept opened several doors for us in Brazil, because until 2014 it was completely forbidden to fish in any protected area of the Brazilian Amazon — either national parks or indigenous lands.

Tom Rowland: Really? It was totally forbidden?

Rodrigo Salles: Totally forbidden.

Tom Rowland: So who made that forbidden — the government?

Rodrigo Salles: The government. It's a regulation to protect the national parks and the indigenous lands.

Tom Rowland: Were they letting the natives fish there, just nobody else?

Rodrigo Salles: Right — sustainable fishing by the natives was no problem. But that regulation was created to protect these areas from the intense commercial fishing that was increasing in the Amazon at the time. So from 2014 on, a gate opened — it became possible to establish partnerships with the natives in the indigenous lands of the Brazilian Amazon. In 2006, we had already started our project in Bolivia with the native Tsimane people. That was a huge success in terms of sharing common benefits and running the operation together with them. That model impressed Brazilian officials, who invited us to replicate it in an area of Brazil.

So, with that concept, we went together with the government's Indigenous Institute and the environmental agency, did some studies, and were allowed to create a partnership model with the natives, where they are the main actors in the operation with us — not just receiving a fee to let other people in, but really and actively participating in running the business of fly fishing and the lodge. We started in 2014 with the Kendjam and Rio Marié operations in Brazil, and that was well received by the authorities, who opened up other possibilities for us. We were invited to scout new places, since many other communities were asking for this kind of partnership.

One very important thing, in my opinion: there's no way to protect the Amazon today if we can't provide a sustainable activity in the area. Protection sustained only by the government, with millions and millions of dollars, doesn't work — because if you close off a place like a national park and everything is forbidden there, you don't have the enforcement to protect these huge lands. Eventually they become vulnerable to illegal threats like mining and logging. So if we really want to protect a portion of land or a river in the Amazon, we have to give the neighbors a sustainable alternative, because they need a better quality of life. They need to survive on more than just hunting and fishing in the jungle — that's not the reality anymore. People forget that the Amazon isn't just about trees, water, fish, and animals. It's about the many people who make their living from this jungle.

So our idea was to build a new sustainable activity based on catch-and-release fishing, where with just a few anglers a week, we could really help protect the land. That became the main model for what we do.

Tom Rowland: Yeah, that's awesome — that concept of creating and providing a sustainable business that the native people are a part of. Was that easy to get across to the government, or were they already looking for something like that, or did you have to propose it and explain it as you went along?

Building Trust: Convincing Governments and Communities

Rodrigo Salles: Well, at the beginning we found some resistance from parts of the government, but that was mostly because they didn't yet understand how this kind of activity could run inside a protected area and actually help protect it. The way many people, especially here in South America, think of sport fishing or catch-and-release, they associate it with people who go there to take all the fish. They didn't see this kind of fishing as sustainable. That's changed a lot over the last fifteen years.

Tom Rowland: And that change is happening because of successful operations like Tsimane and other case studies you could point to. How patient did you have to be? I imagine once you get one person to listen, they take it somewhere else and someone else says no — and you have to explain it all over again, for fifteen years. Has that required a lot of patience?

Rodrigo Salles: Years of faith, yes. I imagine it's because you're proposing a concept where — why would you want to catch a fish just to let it go? For someone who has fished their whole life purely to eat, that's a difficult concept to grasp.

Tom Rowland: So how did you get across to people how important that is, and what kind of financial impact it can have, and how it helps the native people?

Rodrigo Salles: I think the very first challenge was showing the natives that catch-and-release is even possible, because for generations, they'd go to the river, catch a fish, and eat it. We came to Tsimane in 2006 and 2007 with the idea of bringing people to catch a fish for sport, take a photo, and release it. They didn't understand that as an activity at all. It took about three years to show them, first, what tourism even is; second, what sport fishing or fly fishing tourism is; and then catch-and-release itself. Imagine explaining that to people who live in the jungle in what feels like a different era from ours. It was challenging — but it was also really rewarding, because the moment they accepted the idea, they saw us hook a golden dorado on the fly, play it, and release it safely back into the water. Seeing that it was real and possible changed everything.

Then, second, we had to build a lodge — with all the logistics involved — and bring people from other parts of the planet to visit their land. We weren't even sure that part was going to happen. It was so difficult, in the middle of nowhere in the jungle, to build the lodge, establish the logistics for food and resources, and run a world-class operation in the middle of the remote Amazon jungle. It was really challenging. But once they saw it was possible and real, they became our best partners, because they truly understood it was a sustainable activity that would help protect their rivers and their land. Through the example of the anglers who came, spent a week catching fish, had fun, and released them, the community saw: this is real. This is a sustainable activity that brings us revenue, and we can live off of that without cutting our wood, or mining our gold, or selling our fish.

The Tsimane Success in Bolivia

Rodrigo Salles: The model we built with the Tsimane was based on real, deep support — even from the officials — because that area was, at the same time, a national park and indigenous land, so it was completely forbidden. We had to propose a new regulation to the government to allow catch-and-release inside a national park. That took time, but once approved, we started bringing clients in. When we launched in Bolivia back in 2009, it was a tremendous success from the very first week of the inaugural season. We saw that this really could become a model for working together with the natives, in partnership with them and in collaboration with officials who also helped with studies and biological research. We grew really fast under that model.

We took the exact same model we'd built in Bolivia and presented it to Brazilian officials, and we had a currently running, successful operation to show them. They said, well, if Bolivia is doing that and it's running well, and Brazil holds sixty percent of the Amazon, we can try it here too. It could be a real possibility for the natives in the Brazilian Amazon to succeed with a sustainable activity — one that not only gives them a better quality of life (because at the end of the day, they need the same things we do: education, health care, transportation, clean energy) but also helps them protect their land. It's not only about the money. It's also about having an activity that makes them happy and keeps them from being vulnerable to illegal offers — people showing up and saying, "I'll pay you a few thousand dollars if you let me in to mine or log." With a sustainable activity of their own generating revenue, they can say no, we don't want that kind of money.

Expanding to Brazil: Kendjam and Rio Marié

Rodrigo Salles: So we came to Brazil and started the Rio Marié operation in 2014 — a place with crystal-clear waters where you can sight-fish and wet-wade for a huge variety of species. It's unbelievable. It's one of the most pristine rivers in the Amazon. And that's where the arapaima story begins.

By 2015, we already had Bolivia — probably the best place on the planet to fly fish for golden dorado, sight-casting and wet-wading in emerald, clear-water jungle rivers. There's no other place in South America where you can fish for dorado like that. We had also established a partnership with the Rio Marié natives, who hold about six hundred miles of one of the best peacock bass rivers in the Amazon, which allowed us to build the very first mothership operation in the Amazon jungle. That's a whole other story. So we had dorado, we had peacock bass, we had all the multi-species fishing at Kendjam — and Marcelo and I said, what's left? The arapaima.

The Search for Arapaima and the Mamirauá Reserve

Rodrigo Salles: The arapaima is probably the biggest challenge for any angler in the jungle rivers, because it's a monster — more than four hundred pounds and over two meters long. We started scouting places where we could find them. We were invited to visit several protected areas in the Amazon; some were good, some weren't. Eventually we found a very special area where the Amazon River meets the Japurá River — one of the most protected areas in the center of the Brazilian Amazon. We heard it was the nirvana for arapaima. The concentration of fish there was amazing, but it was completely forbidden, because it was the core of a reserve where arapaima come to feed and spawn.

At that time, most of the sustainable-activity areas in the Amazon already had some level of commercial fishing for arapaima. Arapaima is the number-one source of protein in the Amazon — go to the central market in Manaus and you'll see arapaima everywhere. Back in the eighties, the species was actually endangered; it had been heavily overfished across the Amazon. So the Brazilian government started creating special sustainable development reserves specifically to protect arapaima. We visited several of them, but most already had some form of sustainable commercial fishing in place. Arapaima come to the surface to breathe every twenty minutes or so, similar to tarpon, which makes them easy to count. The local communities, working with the environmental agency, developed a method to estimate the population in a given lake or stretch of water. Based on that count, the agency issues a quota — usually one or two percent of the population per year — that the natives can harvest for local consumption and to sell. Arapaima also grow incredibly fast: about twenty pounds in the first year, forty pounds in two years, fifty pounds in three. So taking one or two percent of the population each year isn't a big deal for the fishery.

But when we visited those areas hoping to set up a catch-and-release model, it was difficult, because they were already killing part of the population under their commercial license, and that doesn't mix well with catch-and-release. Then we found one specific area — the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve — where the core zone, a complex of lakes, lagoons, channels, and rivers, was completely off-limits to any kind of fishing, even the sustainable commercial fishing the communities were otherwise permitted to do. The natives there had been trying for years to get a license to do that commercial fishing. There was already a small lodge in the reserve, built by the locals with help from an NGO — the Uacari Lodge. It's a beautiful area, one of the top five wildlife- and birdwatching destinations in the Amazon, and they'd already been hosting ecotourists there for twenty years. But they were also pushing to get their commercial fishing license for arapaima, under that same one-to-two-percent quota system.

Racing Against the Commercial Fishing License

Rodrigo Salles: We heard that they finally got that commercial license back in 2015. I immediately saw an opportunity — if I could talk to these communities and present the idea of switching from a commercial fishing license to a catch-and-release license before they started commercial fishing, that could actually work. I thought I had a window, so I went straight to the villages and asked for a meeting with the local association, which represents fifteen communities living inside the reserve.

Facing 180 Skeptical Natives

Rodrigo Salles: To my surprise, when I arrived there were about a hundred and fifty to a hundred and eighty natives waiting for me in a big room, because the environmental agency had organized the meeting and told them there was a model worth hearing about — this catch-and-release fishing these guys do. They were there to listen, but they assumed I was there to propose something with peacock bass, since that's a smaller, more familiar species there — and actually the prey of arapaima. Instead, I showed up with a laptop, a projector, my fly rods, reels, and some flies. When I started explaining the idea of catching arapaima on a fly, and showed them the gear, they started laughing.

Tom Rowland: What was their traditional method for catching arapaima?

Rodrigo Salles: There are two ways. One is with large nets, which isn't really sustainable because it kills other species indiscriminately. The other, more interesting and ancient method, is with a spear. A fisherman goes out alone in a small dugout canoe, paddling, and waits at a spot where he can see fish rolling on the surface — which is amazing to watch. He stands up in this tiny canoe with a spear tied to a rope, and the moment a fish rolls, he throws the spear, hooks the fish, and hauls it in by the rope, loading it into a canoe that sits just inches above the waterline.

Tom Rowland: So that's probably the toughest, strongest guys in the village doing that — almost a rite of passage. And then all of a sudden you show up with an eleven- or twelve-weight fly rod, and they're looking at it like there's no way you're going to catch this fish with that.

Rodrigo Salles: Exactly — they just started laughing at me. "We kill this fish with a spear and a rope, and you're coming here with this skinny rod, this thin line, and a bunch of feathers tied to a tiny hook — you think you're going to catch one of these monsters? No way." Right at that moment, the president of the association said, "What are we even doing here? This is ridiculous, we're wasting our time. We just got our commercial fishing license, it starts next year, we need to prepare, and we're wasting time." And I said, "No, no, please — just give me five more minutes." I remembered I had a short tarpon film on my laptop, and I said, "I want to show you something — how it's possible to fight a monster fish on this same kind of fly rod. Just watch this and you'll understand a little better."

They were laughing, arguing, some were even getting up to leave, but the president said, "Okay, okay, play the film" — because they loved watching films. So I put on that classic 1970s tarpon film.

Tom Rowland: The one filmed in the Florida Keys? Yes — I'm very familiar with that film. That's filmed right where I fish.

Rodrigo Salles: Exactly. So I played the film, and they watched people on fly rods jumping and fighting big fish. At the very least, they stopped laughing at me and started paying attention. By the end of it, the president of the association said, "Okay, enough — you've made your point. We understand you'd want to try something like this on peacock bass, or on other species that jump the way arapaima does. But not here. It's impossible to fish this way, with this gear, for this fish." I said, "No, it is possible — there's another place where it's already being done, Guyana, and that project started a few years back." They said, "Fine — with your gear, your flies, all this stuff — if it's nonsense, drop it. Let's go tomorrow. Show us it's possible."

The Make-or-Break Day on the Water

Tom Rowland: Pressure's on now.

Rodrigo Salles: I don't even need to say I didn't sleep that night. I had all that pressure on my back — I had to prove to them the next day that it was possible to land one of these fish, and I had never fished with that kind of weight on my shoulders before. I could barely sleep in a hammock outside the meeting room, under a beautiful, star-filled sky, thinking about which fly to use, what I needed to do — but knowing I had to catch a fish. I had to show it was possible to land an arapaima on a fly rod.

The next morning, around six a.m., after just some coffee, there was a long aluminum boat — about ten meters — with plastic chairs set up on it, and all the board members of the native association, six or seven of them, sitting there waiting for me to get in and head to the lake. As soon as I stepped into the boat, the president of the association, Antonio, said, "Okay, let's go — let's see if it's possible to land this fish." The boat driver, Poliano, who I'd only briefly spoken with the night before, turned out to be one of the best arapaima fishermen in the area. He told me how he sees the fish roll and how he fights them with a spear. Then we went fishing.

On my first cast, with all these community members sitting in their plastic chairs just watching me, doing nothing, I could tell what they were thinking: this isn't going to work — you see that line, you see that hand-stripping instead of using a reel? He thinks he can hook one of these monsters on a rod that thin, using his hand? No way, let's go back. But I said, "Just wait — we're here, and I want to show you it's possible." I spent several hours trying to hook a fish. The water was high — it was the end of the season, late November — and conditions weren't ideal, which made it even more complicated.

Eventually we went to a small lagoon deep in the reserve, and Poliano said this was a spot where we could see fish rolling this time of season, since they were gathering to spawn — coming together in shallow water to feed in these small backwater lagoons. We started seeing fish rolling everywhere.

Tom Rowland: Was the water clear or muddy?

Rodrigo Salles: It was black water — clear, but with that tea-colored, acidic tint — and you could really see the fish rolling everywhere. I cast toward where I saw fish rolling, and I finally hooked one that jumped and threw the hook. The moment the fish jumped, the group stopped talking. Now I was back in the game. By around four-thirty that afternoon, I hooked a decent fish — over a meter and sixty centimeters — played it, brought it to the side of the boat, touched the leader, removed the fly, and said, "Guys, it's possible." They were amazed watching that gigantic fish jump and run on a fly rod, hooked and fought by hand.

We released the fish, and Poliano turned the engine back on for the ride back to the village at the mouth of the reserve. The whole way back, not a single word was said. I respected that silence — I was the outsider there, the foreigner — and I sat quietly at the bow of the boat, confident that at least I'd done my part. I'd landed the fish.

Tom Rowland: There were about a million things that could have gone wrong there — you could easily not have landed a fish, with the water that high.

Rodrigo Salles: Exactly, but I did land it. When we got back to the village, they told me, "Rodrigo, stay here, wait a couple of minutes, we're going to meet in the main room and call you in." After about thirty minutes, they called me back in, and the president of the association said, "Rodrigo, that was really something to see. We know how difficult it is to land a fish even with a spear when the water's this high, because the fish are spread out all over the jungle instead of concentrated — and you made it. So, congratulations. But — what else?"

Winning Over the Community and Building the Pirarucu Project

Rodrigo Salles: They said, "We were ready to buy all our gear and boats to start commercial fishing next season, since that begins at the start of the dry season, every July or August. We'd only get the chance to start that activity next year. We were about to spend a lot of money on that — but we've talked it over, and we've decided to give you a chance."

Tom Rowland: Really? They weren't even asking about the numbers — how many people you'd bring, how much you'd pay? It seems like they made a very quick decision.

Rodrigo Salles: During the meeting the day before, I had already shown them how catch-and-release works, how many people we bring to Bolivia and to Rio Marié, and what the numbers looked like — and how we split the benefits fifty-fifty, since that's how we structure all our projects, an equitable division of the profits. I'd shown them real examples from Bolivia and Rio Marié. So they already had my numbers for what a successful season could look like. I had studied the whole commercial fishing supply chain too — from the moment they kill the fish to when they sell it in Manaus, and what they actually earn from it.

Tom Rowland: So what is an arapaima worth to a native fisherman if they kill it?

Rodrigo Salles: Roughly one dollar per kilo — that's the price selling to the nearest town, even though the fish might later sell for five dollars a kilo elsewhere. Using the population estimate for that reserve and the one-to-two-percent annual quota, I ran the economics of that commercial fishing model against the catch-and-release model, and catch-and-release came out at least five or six times more profitable — even with just a four-week, six-angler exploratory season to start.

I proposed we start with six anglers per week for an experimental, exploratory season of four weeks, so we could prove the real potential of the fishery and the whole project, with room to expand the number of anglers and the length of the season as it grew. I called some of my friends and agents in the U.S. and gave them the news: we had found what might be the very best arapaima fishery in the Amazon. The Mamirauá Reserve holds, without a doubt, the highest concentration of wild arapaima anywhere in the Amazon. All the fish move into this roughly two-million-hectare complex of lakes, lagoons, channels, and rivers as the water drops, to feed and spawn. Huge schools of baitfish start entering by July, and the arapaima follow to chase and feed on them, which is why the concentration of fish there is so unbelievable. We knew it was the best place to try for a catch-and-release license — and it all came down to that one fish I hooked and landed. I think that single fish is what made the whole project become a reality.

The meeting and that whole situation with the natives happened in November 2015. The following year we ran our exploratory season — four weeks, six anglers, fully booked. Everyone caught so many big fish that word spread quickly, and people got really interested in the arapaima. We partnered with the local lodge the natives had already built, put together a strong fishing program, bought some really nice flats skiffs, and trained professional fly fishing guides who we paired with native guides. Poliano, the man who drove the boat that first day, became our very first native guide. Every skiff runs with two guides — a professional, English-speaking fly fishing guide alongside a native guide who knows everything about the place.

Tom Rowland: Where do the professional guides come from?

Rodrigo Salles: Mostly Brazil — some of the same guides who already work for us on the Rio Marié. I have two really talented guides there, Rafael and Guilherme, who were just starting out professionally when I saw their potential and brought them onto this project. And by the way — "pirarucu" is the name for arapaima in Portuguese and in the native language. It means "red fish": "pira" means fish, and the fish gets its name from the reddish coloring visible on its scales. That's why we named the project, and the lodge, the Pirarucu Project. I brought those guides in, trained them, and trained the native guides alongside them in fly fishing technique, and it started to take off. The next season, in 2017, we ran about eight weeks. By 2018, we were already running twelve weeks, and it was a real success.

By the end of that first exploratory season, in the board meeting with the natives, they told us plainly: "We're happy with this project. We don't want to do commercial fishing in this area anymore, because here we're protecting the place, and at the same time we're earning nearly ten times more revenue than commercial fishing would bring us." So we signed a contract of partnership and exclusivity with them, and built the project out for the years that followed. It's probably one of the most amazing things we've had happen in our career at Untamed Angling — to get a brand-new fishery, essentially born from a single day of fishing.

Surviving COVID-19

Tom Rowland: As it keeps growing and you have all these successful seasons, and then COVID hits and you don't have people traveling — what happened during that time? It seems like the worst possible outcome would be no income, and the communities going back to commercial fishing.

Rodrigo Salles: Exactly, Tom — that was a real problem, not just at the arapaima reserve but also in Bolivia at Tsimane and in Brazil at Rio Marié. The communities were already depending on these projects, and suddenly we had to tell them we couldn't operate because of the pandemic. The Brazilian and Bolivian governments both officially closed all the indigenous lands and national parks to tourism, so we weren't able to operate at all in 2020. The communities were surprised and afraid of COVID, and we knew that if we just left them without support for a year, commercial fishermen, miners, and loggers would move back in — at Rio Marié, in Bolivia, at Kendjam, and commercial arapaima fishing at Mamirauá. So we did everything we could to support them with whatever funds we had. We also asked everyone who had booked the 2020 season to help — to not ask for refunds on their deposits, but let us pass that money along to the communities instead. We arranged several flights carrying health supplies, medicine, and food, essentially advancing part of their expected benefits. We did our best to protect them, and with a lot of understanding from our agents in the U.S. and Europe, and from our clients and friends, we managed to keep these areas fully protected with no encroachment.

We went back in 2021 and had a really successful season. It was great seeing those places so protected and packed with arapaima. When we returned to the Pirarucu project that August and September, it was amazing to see how protected the place still was, and how full of fish. We finished a strong November season with anglers coming from all over the world — people who'd initially been afraid to travel, but who got vaccinated and came anyway. We didn't have any issues, and the season was a huge success.

How Arapaima Fight on the Fly

Tom Rowland: That's such an incredible story. I didn't want to interrupt earlier, but I have to ask — during the toughest part, when you're on the boat with the board members sitting in plastic chairs watching you, forgive my ignorance, but what languages do these communities speak? You said there were a hundred and eighty natives in that room — was there a language barrier?

Rodrigo Salles: No — they all speak Portuguese, so I could speak with them directly and they completely understood. During that first fishing day on the boat, I remember they eventually grabbed my fly box, laughing at the size of the hooks and how they were dressed with feathers, saying, "You really think an arapaima is going to eat this bunch of feathers tied to a hook?" Someone else said, "No, I don't think so — why aren't they using live bait, or something else the fish would actually strike?" It was something completely new to them — they'd probably never seen anything like it.

Tom Rowland: It's almost like magic — how is this possible, when the strongest guy in the village can barely do it with a spear, and here's this guy with a fly rod?

Rodrigo Salles: And when they saw that first fish jump with the fly in its mouth and then throw the hook, they said, "Wow, that fish actually took the fly." I told them the flies imitate the baitfish arapaima eat. Arapaima are ambush predators — they wait for prey to swim in front of them rather than chasing it over long distances. So what you do is cast the fly, let it sink a little, and strip it slowly to imitate baitfish trying to escape, and the arapaima reads it as real prey and strikes. They were also worried the fish might swallow the hook and die — that was one of their early concerns. But it's amazing how an arapaima actually attacks: it doesn't chase baitfish over distance, it stays in position near some structure or grass, and the instant baitfish pass in front of its mouth, it strikes in a very fast burst, capable of sucking in something like a gallon of water in under a second.

When you're stripping the fly and get hit, you don't feel a big strike where the fish grabs the fly and runs — you just feel a sudden stop, like you've hit a log. You have to set the hook fast, because that strike happens so quickly; if you're not quick enough, all you feel is a ball of force around the hook as the fish spits it back out. In practice, that means arapaima almost never actually swallow the fly and die from it — they take it, realize instantly that it isn't real bait, and eject it. As a very acrobatic, hard-fighting fish with a bony mouth, it's a lot like tarpon.

Tom Rowland: Very similar — tarpon can suck in a huge amount of water too, though I'd guess arapaima can take in even more given the size of that mouth. Snook, largemouth bass, tarpon — a lot of familiar species feed that way. So the arapaima is a natural target: it's freshwater, but similar enough to fish we already understand that we can apply the same tackle and tactics and have a real chance at one. That's the draw. I've wanted to catch an arapaima for maybe twenty years, ever since I saw one at the Tennessee Aquarium — laying there exactly like a tarpon does, occasionally moving, then settling back down near the surface. It's been on my personal bucket list for a long time, and these days there aren't many fish left that make me want to travel the world — but that's one of them.

Do you think this was the most challenging pioneering project you've done in your career?

Rodrigo Salles: In some ways, yes. We've had a lot of different challenges over the years with the company, but the fact that those communities were on the verge of starting commercial fishing — after fighting and struggling with the government for ten or fifteen years to get that license — and at that exact moment, I showed up proposing something completely different… I think it was the right moment, the right place, the right timing, and also a lot of luck with that one fish I hooked and landed, combined with our track record, our vision, and the studies we'd done, plus the support of some important people within the Amazonas state government who believed it was possible. That's how we established the very first catch-and-release fly fishery for arapaima in the Brazilian Amazon. Now, several other communities that do or don't already have commercial fishing operations are inviting us to visit and scout their areas to see if we can expand.

I think arapaima is probably the biggest challenge for any angler in the Amazon, given their size and how hard they are to hook. They're monster fish, but the environment isn't easy either — there's a lot of technique involved, and you need the right conditions: a healthy, protected population and clear water, which not every arapaima reserve has. Some have muddy water, which makes fly fishing for them very difficult. But there are places where it is possible, and I think it's one of the most exciting jungle species in the Amazon.

Planning a Trip to Fish for Arapaima

Tom Rowland: That's an incredible story, and congratulations for opening that up and creating something sustainable that so many people can enjoy. I definitely want to book a whole week. How many anglers can you fit in there?

Rodrigo Salles: These days we run up to eight anglers per week. The season runs from early September through late November or early December, when it closes for the arapaima spawning season and the water starts rising again. The best window is when the water is at its lowest, between September and November.

Tom Rowland: How would someone put a trip like that together?

Rodrigo Salles: The logistics really aren't difficult. Of all our jungle lodges and destinations, this might be the easiest one to reach. Our other operations depend on long charter flights from the nearest town — Santa Cruz in Bolivia, Manaus in Brazil. But the arapaima reserve is close to Tefé, a small town in the middle of the Amazon with its own small commercial airport, served by regular flights from Manaus — about a forty-five-minute hop. Before the pandemic, we had daily nonstop flights from Miami to Manaus, about four and a half hours — actually a shorter flight than Miami to San Francisco or L.A. Manaus is a nice town, worth spending a couple of days in, with good hotels and all the logistics you'd need. From there, it's a forty-five-minute commercial flight to Tefé, and then about a forty-five-minute to one-hour boat ride to the lodge. With those commercial flights, you can customize the trip length — four, five, or six days — and we do combo packages for people who want to fish peacock bass on the Rio Marié and extend their trip with a few extra days chasing arapaima.

Being easy to reach also means we can host more people, and it's a great destination for non-anglers too, since the lodge was originally built for ecotourism and still runs plenty of non-fishing activities — jungle treks with biologist guides, great spots to see jaguars (there's a healthy population there), incredible birdlife, and photo safaris, plus the chance to experience the local communities and their way of life. It's a wonderful place for family members who don't want to spend the whole week fishing. People don't realize how prolific this area is — as the flooded jungle drains between July and September, the baitfish move in, and everything follows: fish, caimans, arapaima, birds. All of that pulse of life arrives in the reserve, and it's amazing. The birdlife alone makes it one of the most exciting places in the Amazon to be.

How to Book with Untamed Angling

Tom Rowland: Well, I've got to go make that happen. So, what about Untamed Angling — how does somebody get in touch with you and learn more about these trips? Is there a website?

Rodrigo Salles: Yes, our website is untamedangling.com, and we're also on Facebook and Instagram. We also have a dedicated webpage specifically about this project and lodge. We have a full sales team that helps book trips, and we also work in partnership with the major fishing booking agents, most of whom already know the place firsthand and can help arrange everything.

Tom Rowland: Nice, I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on and telling us this story — really, congratulations. That seemed like an almost insurmountable goal, and you did it. That's awesome.

Rodrigo Salles: Thank you very much, Tom. It was a pleasure to share this story — part of Untamed Angling's story is this special partnership with the native communities, and that's been a really meaningful thing for us. This project is helping these communities have a better quality of life, while protecting a huge portion of jungle — more than two million hectares — and, without a doubt, the most important arapaima fishery on earth, all because of fly fishing. So we're glad to be running it, and I hope to see everybody — anyone who wants to come experience this with me and our guides would be more than welcome. And that includes you, Tom.

Tom Rowland: Right on. Thank you — alright, thanks, that's awesome. Thank you for that, and we'll talk to you soon.