My wife and I went to Salt
Lake to visit some friends this past weekend, which was nice and all; however,
the main attraction had to be the Amazon exhibit at The Living Planet Aquarium
featuring the PEACOCK BASS!!! Naturally I wouldn’t shut up about the
thing, and my friends and wife were becoming noticeably annoyed at how I always
managed to bring every conversation back to the peacock bass.
My attention from the
peacock bass was distracted for a moment when I was told there was a mall with
a small stream that held fish? Well naturally the questions came flowing out.
What kind of fish are they? Can you fly fish for them? Can you feed them? Is
there a natural hatch that happens in the mall, and if so do people get upset
about the bugs? The quick answers I got were "trout",
"no", "I don’t think so," and "shut up”.
It was a man-made stream
that flowed through the mall, with brown and rainbow trout. Though I was not
able to feed them food or a fly, I did find this awesome fish printed shirt
that I picked up for myself… and it was on sale!
Okay. Back to the
peacock bass. We arrived at The Living Planet Aquarium, and I did not
head straight for the Amazon exhibit. Instead we looked at the other
exhibits first; I just wanted to show my wife and friends how well-behaved I
could be even though there was a peacock bass in the building. They were
not buying it.
FINALLY, we arrived at the
Amazon exhibit, where there were some cool fish.
For instance, this
four-eyed fish has both a set of eyes for on top of the water and below.
A Pacu (more commonly
caught by anglers fishing for Golden Dorado) had straight teeth like a human.
The elusive Arowana, or
the water monkey, nicknamed that because of how they can leap high out of the
water to grab small animals and insects in low hanging branches. Anglers
who have the chance to fish for arowana mention that when they are eating off
the surface they make a unique popping noise that is distinctive to the arowana
feeding. I want to catch one with a pico spider some day.
I watched it as it
stayed motionless, looking up. Perhaps it was waiting for someone to
present a popper, or a Spillers Diver, or perhaps a large baitfish pattern, or
a Dali Llama… and maybe I could be the one to do it? A small part of me knew
that the aquarium would PROBABLY frown upon it. Someday I will get the
opportunity… someday.
