[Editor: this article first appeared on www.ronsfishingblog and may only be used by permission of Ron Speed]

Last week I told you about my ill-fated checkout trip to the Trombetus River in Brazil for peacock bass. This week I will tell you about two more checkout trips searching for that special river to catch the big peacock bass. The peacocks over in Lake Guri in Venezuela just were not the big trophy fish we wanted our clients to catch.

I had talked to my friend Ray Sasser who is the outdoor editor for the Dallas Morning News about looking into the rivers of Brazil for the big peacocks. Maybe a month passed when Ray told me about a new guy who was trying to start up a fishing operation in Brazil. The guy called me and we met in Ennis, Texas to get to know one another.

After the meeting, I decided to do a checkout trip with this fellow to the Madereina River out of Manaus Brazil. I really didn’t like the guy very much so I decided to let Ron Jr. take his group of fishermen on this trip. I didn’t know the guy so I wouldn’t pay 100% of the money for the trip in advance. I sent him 50% of the money and agreed to wire the balance when Ron Jr. called me and verified that this guy had a boat and was for real.

The guides were green as grass and the first morning one boat ran into the back of a boat that had stopped. Thousand wonders some one didn’t get hurt. The only real damage was John Billy’s Scotch bottle got broken in the accident and that was pretty serious stuff for John Billy.

The owner of the boat had a very nice room on the very top of the houseboat. The client rooms were fresh-painted and the odor of the paint didn’t allow the clients to sleep inside so they had to sleep out on the deck of a barge. This was very uncomfortable for them and if the fishing had been good maybe they could have overlooked this inconvenience. After several days of bad fishing the owner left in his private boat as the clients were getting pretty upset with him. While he was gone, Rusty Pool from Chicago went into the owner’s good room and he got the guy’s mattress off his bed and Rusty threw it overboard into the river.

Needless to say Rusty was pretty upset with the guy and said if the guy gave him any lip service he would whip his a—. Rusty played football for Texas A&M and was a pretty tough guy so no one doubted he would do it.

Upon returning to Manaus, the clients were taken to the Buffalo Restaurant and the owner of the boat brought all the clients prostitutes from Manaus. This made the situation even worse as these guys came to catch fish and that was a terrible failure and now this guy was trying to make it up to them by offering them prostitutes. Everyone turned down the offer and told the guy they just wanted to go back to the USA.

Needless to say, this was the last group we ever took to this promoter and we were still looking for the right boat owner and that special river that held the monster peacocks.

About one year later Ron Jr. took another group of his friends on a boat called the Amazon Clipper. Well his group hit the MOTHER LOAD. I followed Ronnie with another group and met his group at the airport when he was leaving. Next week I will tell the results of those next two checkout trips, which I’m sure you will enjoy.

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FISHING & REMEMBER TO WEAR THAT LIFE JACKET!

If you read this blog then you know that I always close every tip & story with a reminder to always wear your life jacket when the boat is moving with the outboard. More drownings happen in the spring than any other time of year. We get high winds and thunderstorms in the Spring which means possible dangerous conditions on the water.

I lost a good friend and his grandson a few days ago on Richland Chambers Lake. In fact, as I write, the divers and helpers are still looking for the bodies. My friend Jerry King was one of the very best cat fishermen I have ever known in my life. For the past maybe 10 years, Jerry would spend 50% of his time on the water trot line fishing or catching a ton of catfish on rod & reel. Jerry had a habit of not using a life jacket. He refused to put one on no matter what and he had gotten away with this bad habit for years.

Well a few days ago his bad habit cost him his life and his grandson’s life. His grandson was 17 yrs old and a senior in Cross Roads High School out on Spring break. Jerry took him cat fishing on a very windy day but Jerry used his big barge to travel about 1 mile to his hot spot. I know Jerry thought the barge would be totally safe in the high winds. It’s next to impossible to drown on a barge. It won’t turn over, it won’t swamp and all you have to do is hold on and stay on the barge.

About 3 PM Jerry and his grandson had a 50-fish limit and the grandson called his grandmother and told her they were on the way back to the boat dock. At 6 PM they had not returned and a search party found the empty barge about 2 miles South of where they were fishing. The side gate was broken off of its hinges and gone. Jerry’s cap and cell phone were on the barge, the motor was turned off and in neutral. There was absolutely no sign of Jerry or his grandson. The real sad part is that there were 3 new life jackets on the barge that had never been used.

The searchers actually don’t know where the bodies are located so it looks like the family will have to wait until the water warms enough for the bodies to bloat and then float to the surface. This might take several days or even weeks.

Please don’t take a chance of putting your family through this torture as you can see accidents can happen even on a non-sinkable boat. Whenever the outboard is moving your boat have the jacket on and fastened and make every one of your friends have a jacket on. If they refuse to wear a jacket, leave them on the bank. If you are driving the boat you are the captain of the boat and responsible for everyone of the occupants of the boat.

Have fun with your fishing and — PLEASE–always wear that life jacket!