The people at Rainforest expeditions asked us to write up a "review" of the fishing experiences that we had on the Tambopata. . . here´s what I put together. . .

To a variety of people at Rainforest Adventures,

My wife, Leigh Needleman, and I (Andrew Frishman) just spent a fabulous week at Posada Amazonas and Refugio Amazonas with Gerson as our guide. When we spoke with someone in the Cusco office about the different options for activities during our stay, we expressed interest in the ¨Chambira Fishing¨ activity. We didn´t know what a Chambira was, but we knew that the tributaries of the Amazon have an incredible diversity of fish and we knew that we wanted to try to see some of them. We also enjoy fishing. She asked us if we were familiar with trout, and I answered "yes", she then said that Chambira were similar to trout. (I leave that up to you to decide. . . http://members.aol.com/corvest/Perou-peche-chambira-payara.htm or http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/art2000/2brooktrout2cr.jpg . .. . personally I would say that Chambira are more like barracuda http://www.jcpoiret.com/bapw/images/tourisme/gabon/barracuda.jpg) but anyway. . . I digress.) However, on the way up into the reserve we saw the skull of a chambira, and the teeth on it bore no resemblance to any trout that I have ever seen.

Luckily, over the course of our trip we actually had 4 opportunities to fish, and were successful each time, although we never saw a chambira (Gerson and one of the staff with us saw one inspect the bait and almost caught one, but we did not get to see it) Anyway, I want to focus on the fact that we very much enjoyed the fishing trip(s). The first two times were at small lakes where we caught a few different species of beautiful small piranhas as well as a species of cichlid fish. We also spent part of one afternoon fishing in the river just across from Refugio where we caught several small catfish as well as some zapamama and anchiovetas or sardinetas. The highlight of the fishing trips was certainly the trip that we took up river with Agustin Mishacha (so sorry I don´t know the spelling of his name?) We stopped at a narrow channel where we tried a variety of methods to catch a chambira. The day was beautiful, the scenery resplendent, but the fish were not biting. I suppose that is why they call it "fishing" and not "catching". We still had a great time. With the help of Gerson and Agustin we caught a rather large (+6 kilo) catfish which we ate for dinner, and had a very good time finding jaguar tracks on the river bank, seeing some small baitfish jump (that may have been chased by chambira?), and generally enjoying the day.

In summary, we had a great time fishing in the Tambopata. . .

Anyway, thanks again, not only for the fishing, but all of the other wonderful experiences we had with Rainforest Expeditions, we will highly recommend you to friends and family,
Sincerely,Andrew Frishman (and Leigh Needleman)andrewfrishman@gmail.com