The Origin of My Payara Flies

As a young boy, my father used to take me to a tackle shop that had mounted fish heads on the wall. Among all of them, the payara heads always caught my eye. The teeth, the huge eyes, the enormous mouth, that aggressive look. To me, they were like some kind of mythological creature.
Some time later that idea started to feel more real, when I saw a mounted payara head at a school friend's house, next to a photo of him and his dad holding one. It seemed incredible, and somehow, more within reach. I was around 10 or 11 years old.
The first times I actually fished for them, early to mid 90s was trolling — conventional tackle, big lures that sank or didn't depending on the time of day. And all though a boring technic, it allowed me to finally meet them, exceeding all expectations, seeing them alive for the first time only made the obsession worse.

The Orinoco, 1999

In 1999 I went to the Orinoco for a month for the first time, mostly to fish for Peacock bass. By then I was already deep into fly fishing and tying my own flies.
The afternoon we arrived, they took us to some rocks in the Orinoco river about ten minutes from Puerto Carreño a Colombian town in the border with Venezuela. I knew that was not Peacock bass best waters but what the heck. I had an 8-weight rod with a floating general flats line — nothing tropical or specialized existed for jungle fishing back then — and my biggest flies were five inches at most. I tied on a baitfish imitation, and the moment I laid the fly on the water to start stripping line, a payara attacked it with that signature curved strike. It didn't hook up, but it was enough to get me pumped! What an amazing suprise.

The action was intense. I landed several in the six- to eight-pound range; the bigger ones kept jumping and throwing the hook. Like always, I thought: payara on the fly is a piece of cake deal.
The following days would prove me so wrong; there was nothing easy about it. The flies themselves weren't the reason for that first amazing bite nor the character of these fish — I had simply walked into a feeding frenzy at its peak, when anything hitting the water got attacked.

What the dead fish taught me

15 or so days later, at the mouth of an Orinoco tributary, far away from town. A Yamú          (Brycon amazonicus also known as Yatorana) migration began. In the afternoons I watched payara tearing into the schools, and I, half out of my mind, kept trying and failing to hook one — though I did manage to land a few Yamú.
The next morning I found seven or eight Yamú dying on the shoreline. Two- to four-pound fish that managed to escape to die later. Every one of them had holes punched through the abdomen or near the head. That gave me a lot to think while eating these Payara gifts over breakfast. 
First, I understood that payara take large prey without any hesitation, regardless of size. That immediately reminded me of the lures used with conventional tackle — always big, Magnum Rapalas, Rebels etc.
Second, I understood that because of their anatomy, payara always strike the mid-section of their prey, where the organs are and where the body mass is most concentrated — the most efficient place to attack, stop the prey and swallow. The way their mouth opens, which is pretty wide, forces them to attack on a curve movement so they can actually stab. So anyone who tells you payara are tail-biters or tells you hook ups are missed because a tail is too long is wrong not to say full of BS. I'll get to why a trailer hook or tandem rig works in a moment.

The fly that finally worked
Watching everything unfold that day helped me understand payara behaviour much better, and I set out to build a fly that would actually work. I had no materials — just a few black 3/0 hook, five-inch flies — so I added a strip of black cloth, tied on as best I could at the back of the hook, stretching the fly out to eight or nine inches.
That afternoon I started casting it, mending line to drift it and a few minutes later I got my first strike. It didn't hook up, but I saw it jump. After so many frustrating days, the feeling of finally cracking the problem made me so happy. I kept casting, got more strikes, they kept missing the small hook on front, the cloth eventually tore apart completely, so I repeated the process with more black strips.
Finally, late in the afternoon, after many casts, I felt an incredible pull. I just kept the line as tight and the rod as low and straight as I could, repeating to myself over and over: "no trout strike, no trout strike." The line burned my fingers. The water in that stretch was slow, far from any rapids, and yet this Payara had already made it to the reel — and for the first time on that water, I watched backing peel off and off while that reel kept singing. All I could think was: if this fish gets off, who's ever going to believe this story?
I saw it jump three times. The size of it, that mix of nerves and joy that goes straight to your legs and makes them shake — I will never forget it.
There I was, with my 8-weight, landing — after twenty minutes or more, I honestly don't know — my first twenty-pound Payara, which by sheer luck had opened its mouth just wide enough for that small hook to catch the corner of its jaw. Absolutely unforgettable, and still alive in my memory to this day. A challenge really makes its way into the brain main archives.

What came after

After that, my whole idea of what a big fly should be changed. From then on, I looked for ways to make them huge, 9 to 12 inches long easy to cast, able to swim well in both rapids and pools, and countless other things I learned through trial and error — in a time with no real information, barely any internet (even less so in Colombia), and almost nothing written about fly fishing in the jungle or about big fish or flies.
The evolution of those flies — the Payara Dragon Candies, tied on tubes — is the result of years and years of fishing for Payara and understanding them a little better each time. The versatility of the tube, and the ability to swap rigs on the same fly (which also lasts longer since it separates from the hook and the payara's mouth), is invaluable to me. You can even join two or more flies together to build something massive enough to tempt that forty-pound payara we're all after.

Why the trailer hook works

Back to the question of why a trailer hook is so effective, if this "vampire fish" doesn't bite tails — it's simple. As I explained, payara always attack the middle section of their prey. What they'd want is for those fangs to sink into flesh, but the fly is made of hair, and hair slides right through their teeth. Using a trailer hook, it eventually catches — with a bit of luck if they miss the first hook on a tandem rig — somewhere in a mouth that's already hard and difficult to penetrate. In my experience the trailer is more important than the hook in front, using just one to the back has improved hooking ratio by a lot.

Today, I take pride in knowing that after so many years of being overlooked, the Payara has become one of the Holy Grail species in jungle fly fishing, right alongside Peacock bass. Its so technical, far from easy and its looks, jumps, its aggression, and its speed never disappoint. They basically fight just how they look. They are the real deal and my absolute fav in Jungle waters.

Armando, Founder of Orinoco Flies

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