Adult Peacock Bass |
South Florida Bass or more commonly known as Peacock Bass
are one of the hidden gems of Florida nestled away in the south east corner of
the state. Although similar to the
largemouth bass they do not belong to the same family. Imported from South
America in 1984 to help control the population of smaller fish, the Butterfly
Peacock actually belongs to the Cichla Genus.
They are very similar to the
Ciclids that are common in home aquariums.
Once introduced peacock bass quickly became one of South Florida's most
prized game fish.
Confined to the waters of South Florida peacock bass can be
found throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties with a few creeping up into
Palm Beach. They love slow moving canals,
lakes and ponds with overhanging structure and thick vegetation cover. I recommend the canals because they have an
ample supply of food, thick cover and they’re less fished. The problem is these Amazonian lunkers
require warm water vastly limiting their habitat in the United States. If the water temperature falls below 60
degrees Fahrenheit they will die. In
fact, during the winter of 2010 South Florida experienced several back to back
cold fronts killing many Peacock Bass and threatening their survival. Luckily
they quickly bounced back and are now plentiful.
Peacock bass are like largemouths in shape and mouth size
but the similarities stop there. The
easiest way to identify peacock bass is by their distinctive and pronounced
black eye on their caudal fin. This
along with their bright olive green body and red belly make them easy to
identify. Juveniles display three
vertical black stripes but as they mature their stripes diminish and their
color can lighten to yellowish green color.
Also, adult males can develop a distinguished hump on their foreheads
during mating season to attract females.
Peacock bass have two distinct growing phases. Their juvenile growth of 12-16" occurs in
the first two years of its life then growth becomes much more concentrated on
girth. Basically, a 17" fish will
weigh about 3 pounds, a 19" bass weighs around 5 pounds and so on.
Juvenile Peacock Bass |
You can handle them the same way as largemouth bass but
beware of what I’ve come to call peacock thumb.
Handling largemouths is simple- the thumb grip lower jar
immobilizer. Problem is that while it is
an effective grip to remove the hook it does not subdue peacock bass the way it
does largemouths. Smaller boys are easy
to handle but if you land a lunker be ready for a duel with a sandpaper
vice. Either tape your thumb or proudly
display the abrasions on your peacock thumb!
Introduced into South Florida to control the population of
smaller invasive fish destroying canal vegetation, these predators will eat any
fish they can fit into their mouths. That
being said the best bait is anything that will mimic bait fish. I mostly use a
swim jig with swim bait trailer but will occasionally use a spin bait with a
swim bait or simply a swim bait alone.
You are going to want some kind of weed guard whether it’s part of the
jig or a Texas rigged swim bait. Leave
your plastic worms at home because Peacock Bass will not hit them. This is a very common mistake because while
largemouth bass love plastic worms peacock bass will not touch them. Tackle depends more on the water and cover
than the fish itself but I recommend going as light as possible. I'm currently
running a Daiwa Ballistic spinning reel with 10# monofilament on a custom
Dunamis Rods rod which is perfect for the canals I fish but depending on cover
you may need to up your tackle.
One final piece of advice: bring your net. First of all, if you’re bank fishing you will
need it to bring it up the bank. If you
try to pull it up your line will snap and your fish will happily swim
away. It happened to me once and now my
net is always within reach. Second, I’m
lucky enough not to have any snakeheads in my canal but there are gar and I’m
not messing around with them either!
If you're lucky enough to make it down to South Florida I
highly recommend a fishing trip to the canals. There's plenty of bank fishing,
boat rentals and charter fishing opportunities to help you land that giant
South Florida Bass! If you have any
further peacock bass or South Florida fishing questions please let me know!
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