Let me first start by saying that peacock bass are the most beautiful fish in the world imho. We made it out to one of the canals just outside Miami. In retrospect, I think we had a little bit tougher conditions than we thought. The day was beautiful: 82 degrees and sun. But the few days before had been a bit of a cold front with a bunch of rain. So I think that dropped the water temp a few degrees, making the fish a bit sluggish.
We started the day by throwing rattletraps along the edges of the canal. These canals are about 25-35 feet wide and range from 14-20 feet deep, so there's a real drop off. The water was gin clear. You could see 10+ feet down into the water. We had no luck with the rattle traps, so we went to poppers. No dice there either. We were able to see a few peacocks hanging around overhangs, so I pitched some jigs at them. Still no takers. They seemed really sluggish. Eventually we succumbed to the need to catch some fish and started fishing with shiners. They were the ticket. We had come to the end of a canal and got out of the boat and walked around a bit. There was a huge school of peacocks at the end hanging around the culvert. We started throwing shiners in and caught several. Then it died out. We didn't catch any big ones; they ranged from 11-14 inches. But holey moley were they beautiful.
After working that area, we went the other way down the canal. We had to bushwack our way out the other end of the canal in very skinny water that opened up into another canal. Have I ever mentioned that I'm totally freaked out by snakes? Think of that Bill Dance blooper video. That snake is like my worst nightmare. Anywho, we went down this skinny water, and I had clear the way through all the bushes and sometimes pull on the trees to get through. I could just imagine reaching out and grabbing hold of a snake. Never happened, but I was a bit freaked.
Once we got out of this little stream, we were in a new canal. It was a bit bigger, probably 55+ feet across. And all of 20+ feet deep. We ran into a couple big gators in this canal. One was about 14 feet long. Then we got down to a bend in the canal where I connected on a small peacock on a rattletrap. It hit real hard and fought well. But only 10". In that corner and another 100 yards or so further, we caught another 10 or so peacocks.
To end the evening, we ran back to the end where we had fished earlier and seen the large group of fish. We couldn't get any of those peacocks to go again, but my buddy pulled a 7 lb largemouth. That was fun. He was using a FishinFreaks 7'0" Light poppin rod that was built for throwing weightless shrimp for bonefish. It was a great fight at sunset to end the day.
On two other days, we ran out for about 2 hours and fished for mangrove snapper. It's basically like bass fishing. We used frozen shiners and pitched them up to the roots of the mangrove trees. These fish were about 10-13 inches long, but they fought like 4+ pound smallies. It was lots of fun.
Hopefully my buddy will send pics soon. I would definitely do the trip for peacocks again. I think I would save my pennies and try to hire a guide for one day to get some good tips and make sure we had a good understanding of how to effectively fish for them. I know that there are some big peacocks in those canals, but we couldn't get the big 'uns to go.
By the way, coming home on Wednesday, we had a 94 degree turn around. Getting on the plane in Miami, it was 82 degrees. When I walked through the door at the house that night, it was -12. Whoa.
My first peacock of the day.
Joe's pretty peacock
Link;
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6006/j ... ockei5.jpg
Valentine peacock (notice the heart shaped spot on his back)
Link;
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8773/h ... ockcl9.jpg
Joe's 7 pounder
Staff
