Rio Mataveni – Colombia, South America

After three years of being closed off to public fishing, 2027 is the return of Colombia’s giant peacock bass river on the Mataveni River.

Long famous for growing record-class fish, the International Game Fish Association recognizes the Mataveni River for producing two world record Orinoco peacocks, and a speckled peacock weighing 26.8 lbs. Chasing world records may or may not be on your bucket list, but the experience of casting a fly to a 20-lb class peacock bass floating just under the water’s surface in a tropical lagoon should be!

The Mataveni River is a tributary to the Orinoco River, and played a key role in the exploration for peacock bass in South America. Rugged early trips into the jungles of Colombia for peacock bass were executed in the 70’s and 80’s by outfitter Kjell von Sneidern, and his sons Erland and Erik. What they discovered during those groundbreakings, rough-and-tumble expeditions was some absolutely incredible fishing, soon to be sealed into darkness by political instability and battling drug cartels. Wonderfully, the past decades of drug-related violence in the jungle have vanished, the FARC all but eliminated, making it safe once again to fish in this spectacular tropical wilderness.

While there are a number of world-class peacock bass rivers in Colombia, the Mataveni is particularly intriguing due to its angling history, small size, and that access to the river is strictly and completely controlled by the indigenous people who live there. These same people will be your river guides for the week, navigating the waterway that has been their home since childhood. They know the Mataveni like no other, paddling their long dugouts silently into dark water lagoons while you cast to your fish of dreams. The angling window is short, coinciding with the dry season and low water flows – January through early April. Because the local people are very protective of their fishery, they often rest the river for weeks, with no anglers being allowed on the river at all. It is to their credit that the well-being of this fishery comes first to them; because of this they strictly enforce a single, barbless hook only rule, and gently release these magnificent fish back into their river and lagoons.