Fishing in Pantanal Matogrossense National Park

Pantanal Matogrossense National Park sits in the floodplain of the upper Rio Paraguai, straddling the border of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul in western Brazil.

The park covers 135,606 hectares of classic Pantanal terrain — a low, seasonally inundated basin where rivers spill across the plain for months at a time, then contract back into defined channels.

The water here is not static; it moves with the seasons, and so does the fishing. The Rio Paraguai is the main artery through the park, and the Rio São Lourenço feeds into this system from the north.

Smaller waters — the Rio Alegre, Rio Caracará, Riozinho do Uval, and the baías (shallow lakes) like Baía do Dia Dois — fill and connect during the wet season, then become isolated as water recedes.

The baías are worth attention: when they shrink in the dry months, fish concentrate in them in numbers that can make for exceptional sessions. The dry season, roughly May to October, is when most anglers come.

Water levels drop, fish stack in the remaining channels and lakes, and navigation is more predictable. The wet season, October through April, transforms the park into a vast shallow sea — accessible mainly by boat, with fish dispersed across the flooded plain.

Some anglers prefer this period for the sheer reach it allows, but logistics are considerably more demanding. Species present in the broader Pantanal system include dourado, pintado, cachara, pacu, and piranha.

The dourado in particular draws anglers to the faster water of the upper river sections. Access to the park is remote; Corumbá is the nearest significant town, and reaching the park typically requires boat travel on the Rio Paraguai.

Pantanal Matogrossense is a strictly protected national park managed by ICMBio, and it carries Ramsar Wetland of International Importance status.

Fishing regulations here are not the same as in the surrounding Pantanal — check directly with ICMBio for current rules before planning any trip inside park boundaries.