We went Piranha fishing one afternoon. Our guide, Basilio, said it would be the easiest thing we ever did. Basilio said we only had to remember one important thing, "which was to catch and eat them before they catch and eat you”.

We went up the Amazon River, then up the Napo River and then up smaller tributary streams. Our guide said we were in search of “black water”. The Amazon, Napo, and most large tributaries have very muddy, silt-filled, and brown water. We eventually reached water that was very black and very clear, which is where we went fishing.

This was me pulling in a white piranha. You can notice the black water in the background. We just used sticks for poles with hooks wired to a short piece of fishing line. We used raw beef for bait.

Our guide showed me how to take out the hook on my first catch, or rather how to avoid the piranha’s teeth when I removed the hook.

This was a red piranha that I caught. Our guide put it on the floor of the boat because it would have hopped out of the boat if kept with the others. That also meant we had to watch out for our toes. We could hear the fish snapping their teeth while they lay around.

This is our small crew of intrepid piranha fishermen including on the left: Ron Weber, Doris Brookes, and Bill Brookes. I'm in the back, down low.

This is our catch at one point in time. The fish on the left was my big white piranha but my big red piranha was even bigger than that and had to be kept on the floor of the boat.

You might be wondering why you haven't seem Vicky, my wife, fishing for piranha. She was busy working on the original Amazon.com (com = Children Offering Merchandise)

Our small boat got stuck going up river to fish, but our guides pushed us through the low spots. I was worried coming back since the river had gone down. Sure enough, we got stuck and had to get out of our boat and walk through the piranha-infested water. It called for a strong belief in God, my family, and my country, but I was the first person out of the boat. That plus seeing a bunch of small children swimming in the river nearby.

Here I'm eating one of my piranha for dinner. They were excellent eating but did have lots of bones in them. They somewhat reminded me of eating perch.

Here are our friends Bill Brookes, Ron Weber, and Patty Weber also enjoying some piranha.