Peacock Bass in South Miami

The school year had ended, and so before I left for the summer, my friend Ethan Wenger invited me and a few others to his place in Pinecrest to hang out. His house happens to be on a canal, and he had told me about the fishing there is to be done there. Naturally, I packed up the car with some fishing rods with hopes of getting into some good action. I'd only fished the South Florida canals a few times, and had only caught a Peacock Bass once. I know that they are good fighters and show off beautiful coloration, so I was excited to pursue them and whatever else would bite. As soon as I got there, Wenger and I checked out the backyard with some rods to see if there were any fish out there before sunset and leaving for dinner. All we had for bait was bread, but that proved to be enough. While we were casting out the bread, a big, bright reddish-orange Midas Cichlid came out of nowhere. It took Wenger's bait, and he quickly reeled it in. A very solid fish, and a new type of species for me. Like other Cichlids, it is a non-native species that can be found throughout the South Florida canal system. That being said, as anglers we'll take the opportunity to see this cool looking fish up close. After a release and a little more fishing, we left for dinner and planned to take a canoe out early the next morning in pursuit of Peacock Bass.

May 7th

May 8th:

Early the next morning, Wenger and I woke up and drove to Kendall Bait and Tackle (picking up some bagels along the way as well). I brought my bait bucket so that we could get a couple dozen live shiners - perfect bait fish for the Peacocks. I forgot some of my gear, so we also bought a few hooks and headed back to the house. Before we set out on the kayak, Wenger and I started fishing the bank, freelancing live shiners that we hooked through the mouth. We looked for any Peacock Bass that were cruising the bank, and I relatively quickly saw one in front of me. I casted the shiner out around it, keeping a finger on the line to keep it from going too far, and the Peacock Bass bit it aggressively. It put up a good fight, and I brought in the first fish of the day. It was great to be on the board and to once again catch such a beautiful fish. With such a good start, we knew it would be a good day. Shortly after, Wenger also hooked up on a nice bull Peacock on the shore as well. Peacock Bass are technically species of cichlids, not bass - thus the males are known to have a hump on their heads.

After a bit, we were ready to take out the canoe and see if we could catch any other Peacocks down the bank of the C-100 canal By then Adam Chopp, a good friend with whom I hadn't fished since 2013, came out and wanted to come fishing. We loaded up the canoe with the bait bucket, the tackle, some towels, the rods, and some paddles, and set off. We drifted along as we were paddling, casting our treelined shiners in front of us to parts of the bank that looked like they might hold some fish. Adam's bait got eaten pretty soon into the trip, and he reeled in a solid fish. The trip continued like that, with one of us hooking up every 10-15 minutes or so, with some dry spells as the day got hotter. There were some times, though, where we would even double up with two bites at once. We kept going until we reached a low bridge at a wider part of the canal, under which were a ton of spider webs. We decided at this point that it was time to head back, after about 2 hours on the water. We left on the canoe at about 10 and got back at around 12:30.  Overall, it was a very enjoyable day on the water hanging out and catching some very fun fish. We had aimed to catch around 4 on the canoe but we ended up catching about 8. I was glad to finally be able to fish on the canals Wenger had told me so much about, and to fish with Chopp again after so long. I'm looking forward to the next time.