Piranha fishing

August 26th, 2009: Being taught the technique of Piranha fishing in the Amazon Basin by our guide Tarzan, I thought it shouldn’t be too hard to catch one of these meat eaters…hoping that I would be able to break my dry spell of 24 years not catching anything except for women that I eventually released or those that I lost along the way. The technique seemed to be quite simple…all I had to do was hook a piece of meat on the line, drop it in the water, scream a bit and vigorously move the tip of the rod around.

I quickly realized these fish were not the savages Hollywood made them out to be. Most of them were casually nibbling on the fleshy meat that was being dangled on the string, reducing the meat to a microscopic morsel without me being able to give them an involuntary lip or cheek piercing.

The fish with the beautiful pearly whites were definitely hungry as the others on my long boat were hauling the piranhas in as everyone would annoyingly make these, “ooh and aah” noises. Sitting there I tried to telepathically talk to the fish, begging them to just hold onto the hook for just 20 seconds or so as I would ever so gently pull them. I could feel that my time was coming hoping and I was going to be the one to pull in the piranha that could eat a small dog or freshly born child in a single bite. I could see myself years from now, looking at a photo of me holding a piranha in front of a longboat in the Amazon basin telling all my unborn grandchildren how I pulled the piranha in after a 4 second battle – turning into a 45 minute battle as the years go by.

At the highest point of my boredom, I began to lazily flop my rod in the water…giving up hope. Wanting to casually flip my hook to the front of the boat and yank back the rod to quickly silence the crowds chatter- knowing that it might be best to continue day dreaming… going through the motions of fishing. Moments later Tarzan stole the enormous piranha that was for some unknown reason, meant for me as he flung it inside the longboat, landing next to a guy who miraculously levitated back a few seats.

A large amount of time went by, giving me plenty of time to think…about the inhumanness of fishing. Not wanting to potentially damage the piranha’s frightening smile when performing the lip or cheek piercing with the rusty metal hook, I put down my stick and decided that I didn’t want to catch any fish today or any other day this week, next week or the one after that for that matter. This decision had nothing to do with me realizing that I wasn’t going to catch anything…if I wanted to catch a dozen piranhas, I could have done it - really - sniffle - sniffle.