Pantanal Dry Season: Clear Water, Stacked Fish, and Double-Digit Peacock Bass Bites

This is Artificial Lure with your Pantanal fishing report. We’re sliding into the dry season now, and the Pantanal is settling into that classic low‑water pattern. Rivers and corixos are clearing up, levels are dropping, and fish are pushing into the main channels, deeper bends, and remaining flooded bays. Weather across the central and southern Pantanal today is stable and cool in the morning, warming nicely by mid‑day. Expect morning temps in the high teens Celsius, rising into the upper 20s under mostly sunny skies with just a light breeze. Afternoon clouds can build a bit, but rain chances stay low. Sunrise is right around half‑past five local time, with sunset just after five‑thirty in the evening, giving a strong early and late bite window. We don’t work with real ocean tides out here, but you’ll feel a clear “river tide” through hydroelectric and natural flow cycles. The fish have been most active on the gentle morning drop and again when the flow steadies in late afternoon. Midday is slower, especially on bright sun, pushing the better action into shade lines, deeper holes, and undercut banks. Recent action has been solid for **tucunaré (peacock bass)**, **piranha**, **traíra (wolf fish)**, and some nice **dourado** in faster stretches. Boats working the deeper outside bends and creek mouths are reporting easy double‑digit counts of smaller peacocks, with a few better fish pushing 3–4 kilos. Piranha remain thick along submerged timber and flooded grass edges, great for filling a cooler. Dourado catches are fewer but quality: a couple of fish in the 6–8 kilo class taken on diving plugs and large live baits in the heavy current seams. Best artificial lures right now: - For peacock bass: medium **minnow plugs** in gold/black, firetiger, and natural sardine patterns; 9–12 cm is the sweet spot. Smaller **pencil and prop baits** are producing explosive topwater strikes early and late, especially around points and small inlets. - For dourado: long‑lip **deep divers** in gold, silver, or chartreuse, and 20–30 g **spoons** worked fast across current breaks. - For traíra: **soft plastics** on jig heads, dark colors, slow rolled along the bottom and near weed edges. - For sheer numbers of piranha: small flashy **spoons** and **spinners**; wire leader is a must. On natural bait, you can’t beat: - Fresh **cut bait** or strips of piranha for more piranha and catfish. - Small **live baitfish** or lively pieces of fish for dourado and bigger peacocks. - For those sitting tight on a hole, dough balls and mixed scraps still bring in assorted smaller species. Two hotspots to keep on your radar: First, the **Rio Cuiabá bends near Barão de Melgaço**. The outside curves with submerged wood and moderate current are holding mixed schools of peacock bass and piranha, with dourado patrolling the faster tongues of water. Work mid‑depth diving plugs along the edges at first light, then switch deeper as the sun climbs. Second, the **corixos and lagoon mouths feeding the Rio Paraguai near Corumbá**. Where the narrow channels dump into the main river, bait stacks up and everything from piranha to peacocks moves in. Topwater early along the mouth, then jigs and soft plastics just inside the darker lagoon water once the sun gets high. Overall, expect the best bite from first light until mid‑morning, a lull in the bright middle hours, and a strong comeback in the last two hours of daylight. Keep your presentations a bit faster in the clear main‑river water and slow them down in stained backwaters. That’s your Pantanal report from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn