Piranha – Deadly and Delicious
They had it even before we knew what was going on. My rod bowed in prayer to something below the surface of the tea-colored water. The six-pound test line danced like a cat on hot pavement. All hell had broken loose. Beads of sweat rolled down Doris’s back. Her clothes were now a second skin, clinging to her every move. We gasp for breath. We had fish. The oval-shaped silvery body and red belly of a piranha broke the surface. I reached it. “Don’t let a finger near their mouths or you’ll lose it,” barked our native guide.
Minutes earlier, I shivered from the breeze blowing from somewhere up ahead despite 85+ degree heat. Double-digit humidity didn’t help either. A maddening buzzing filled my ears, but thanks to my layer of Vick’s Vapor Rub, the bloodsuckers wouldn’t feast on me. My eyes burned. My nose runs. A coffee table-sized leaf or overhanging branch hit me every few steps. Curses spilled from my lips even with my best efforts to become one with the rain forest, as the Indian had.
Our fishing rods ranged from 18″ to five and a half feet. I was hoping the light mono would suffice, although I had kept twelve and twenty pound test reels as an afterthought. If we tag in a 50+ pound test Tambaqui Even that wouldn’t be enough. Vines as thick as my wrist dipped into the light brown waters making little ripples as they slithered between roots and fallen branches. Tangled vegetation matted the gentle slope of the shoreline in a tea-colored I cast a thumbnail-sized piece of bloody chicken liver on a barbed hook with a split shot in a dinner-plate-sized whirlpool right next to a tangle of protruding mangrove roots up through the surface.
Minutes later, tanned skin glistening with moisture, our guide demonstrated the effectiveness of the scissor teeth. A green leaf held near the open mouth instantly showed a neat crescent-shaped bite. Three heavy blows to the head prepared the killer for the cleanup. After cleaning, the embera would make a series of diagonal cuts along each side of the fish. Onto these he carefully rubbed a mixture of salt, garlic, and ground roots from a small gourd he was carrying. A simple shaved branch structure supported the fish over a smoky fire of glowing coals. The firm, toasty meat had a mild, slightly earthy flavor, like a seasoned and softened catfish. With a wink and a sly nod at Doris, he said. “Make soup out of these heads and you’ll need a lot of wives.” She looked at me with a puzzled look. I smiled.
The perfect killing machine
The Amazon is full of dangers. Soldier ants march by the millions devouring all life in their path. Submerged up to the eyes, the crocodiles lie in wait for the unsuspecting, whatever or whoever. Undulating its 20 feet in length below the surface, the Anaconda, one of the world’s largest snakes, uses heat-seeking guidance to find its next meal. The barbed stinger on the tail of the dinner plate-sized stingrays can inflict a wound that takes months to heal. But none of these bear the fearsome mystique of the ravenous Piranha. Ranging across South America from Brazil to the lowlands of Peru, they also inhabit waters off Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia. In the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers of Brazil and the Orinoco River in Venezuela, no creature is safe from the piranha’s razor-sharp teeth and powerful jaws. The serrated teeth fit together like scissors, allowing the Piranha to slice through the flesh of its prey. Like a shark, a piranha’s teeth are replaceable, when one breaks a new one grows in its place.
The Yagua Indians of Peru often use the sharp edges between the teeth of a piranha jaw to sharpen the tips of their blowgun darts. A fish that is dying or swimming erratically will quickly be attacked by a large school. Piranha will also attack without warning to defend their eggs and territory. An injured animal that is lost in the water will be stripped to the bone so quickly that it almost appears to “dance” on the surface as it is ravaged from below. A bird that falls into the water will be gone, feathers and all, in three minutes or less. A fish caught struggling in a net will be chewed up to the head in a matter of seconds. Attacks on large animals and humans are often dramatically depicted, but rare. In some regions, piranhas are known as “donkey castrators”.
“They will render and devour alive any wounded man or beast.” The president of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, said and added: “Piranhas are the most ferocious fish in the world.” Piranhas, also called Caribe or Piraya, only furthered their fearsome mystique when Roosevelt encountered them during his exploits in 1914. There are about 35 known species of piranhas, but only five species pose a danger to man. Species range from the red-bellied piranha (Pygocentrus nattereri) with its characteristic red belly to the largest carnivorous species, the black piranha with its devil-red eyes and a dark 17-and-a-half-inch-long body weighing up to ten pounds. It could take a man’s hand off in two or three bites.
Most species feed on fruit or seeds that fall into the water from overhanging trees. Fish are not always aggressive. Women wash clothes in knee-deep water where men spear fish while children bathe or swim unharmed in these same piranha-infested waters. Adding to the piranha mystique, Indian men with half a dozen wives and as many as twenty children attribute its potency to piranha head soup, although there is as yet no scientific justification for the potency of the soup.
piranha fishing
Piranhas are often part of the diet of indigenous people in areas where the fish are found. All you need to go piranha fishing are lines with a metal leader next to the hook so the fish won’t bite the line, a supply of raw red meat (earthworms or cut up fish will do just fine), and a bit of luck. Piranhas swim in large schools and are attracted to movement and blood. In May 1999, hundreds of fishermen armed with rods, reels and raw fillets flocked to the Brazilian city of Aracatuba, near Sao Paolo, for a Sunday piranha fishing tournament. The townspeople had declared an open season for the carnivorous fish, which had decimated other species in the local river. The tournament prize was an outboard motor. But “most of the fishermen were content to go home with lots of supposedly aphrodisiac piranhas,” said then-city spokesman Nelson Custidio.
Piranha, which earned its notorious reputation by killing 1,200 head of cattle each year in Brazil, is one of the best to eat in South America. Whatever name you call them and no matter where you try them, when cooked in a variety of ways, their firm, light meat with its mild, slightly nutty flavor is a flavor you’re sure to enjoy.