Have any of you guys ever fished for Peacock bass on the Amazon in Brazil?..... If so please share your real world advice of what brands and models of reels work best for you, both spinning and bait casting for throwing X-Large top waters.

From what I have heard the following things are desirable....

1. High gear ratio(7:1 minimum)
2. Large line capacity - incase a fish hits and starts taking line at full cast
3. Able to handle 60 lbs braid line

Any other gear tips are welcome, we're looking at fishing the Rio Negro in Brazil Feb 2022

UH...Deewayne...it's past Feb 2021 sir. Typo???

uh yes..we are going next year, forgive the typo - Now anyone got reel suggestions?

garcia 6500c3 with braid is good, I keep one with 50# on an 8' ex hvy rod.

if I were going I would take 3-4 round reels for line capacity.

I caught some baby ones in FL I cannot imagine hooking one 4 times bigger. 50-60 lbs line should do it. I have no idea. I used 30 lbs power pro with a 20 lbs flouro leader as the water I was fishing was clear. Again, the fish in FL a giant is 7 lbs. I thought getting to fish for them would whet my appetite for going to South America but it made me want to go worse.

Just an observation. Practice with a heavy rod and casting heavy lures before hand to get yourself in extra heavy tackle shape. If not you may find you fatigue pretty quick and it may effect your enjoyment.

100% agree with you on preparing to throw table leg size lures all day!

I have been told to stick with 60lbs+ braid as 18lbs peacocks are apparently able to snap 50lbs braid fairly easily and your fishing around submerged brush.

"I have been told to stick with 60lbs+ braid as 18lbs peacocks are apparently able to snap 50lbs braid fairly easily and your fishing around submerged brush"

Not sure who told you the above, but it is not true. I fished 12 lb. Stren and had no problem landing fish over 20 lbs.

There is not a lot of brush in the water. The majority of the fish come from submerged rocks. After landing your fish, you need to take it back to the rocks to release it. If not, the porpoises will get it.

I brought the high gear Shimano Mentanium just for the trip. Think it was 8.5:1. Great reel. Casts a mile. I could cast farther than anyone with that big top water. 60# braid is plenty. Also took a Curado K in high gear range. It worked great too. Whatever high gear ratio reel you like should work fine. Went with Ron Speed and they had a great selection of rods and baits to use.

Your going to cast about a million casts. You must rip the big top water back. Wear gloves and bring medical tape to tape your hands.

There was plenty of flooded brush below the surface where we fished. I wouldn’t use mono but you could land most the fish with it except around flooded brush which was where we caught most of our fish.

We used the Diawa Zillion models. An older one was 8:1 and a new one was 10:1. One big reason was because my family all uses LH reels and the outfitter said they only had RH available. We did use their rods but packed the reels and took them. Altogether we had 4 (one each and a spare). We used braid but switched out mono or fluro leaders depending on the situation and line strength. The guides supplied the leaders. My reel just acts smoother with mono so I loaded up 20# and let the guide put whatever leader he wanted on it. The biggest thing is to ASK the guides before you ever leave. We could have showed up with naked reels and they had everything else we needed.

I took a couple Shimano Mentaniums in 8.: 1 gear ratios for the wood choppers, I also took a few of my Shimano MG 50’s. I caught my largest peacock, 21 pounds on a Brazilian made XRap, with the MG 50. It has 6.3 : 1 gears and the fish made some runs and I had no problem controlling it.

What I learned is that you don’t need heavy action rods, which I took down there. The heavy action hindered the correct retrieve of a wood chopper. The guides will show you the best way to get the correct sound is to keep the rod directly in front of you and pull the rod down with your forearms and wrist. Shorter rods are easier to use.

You will also be fishing with Zara Spooks, hard jerk baits , hair jigs, and hopefully the Brazilian x rap. The x rap bait caught most of our groups largest fish and most likely the most fish. For those baits medium heavy rods with slower gear ratios worked well.