Fly Fishing for Peacock Bass in a Gated Community

Noah and I got to Sonny's new place after dark on the 27th and crashed in his living room after some good spicy ramen, completely ready to get up before the sun in the morning to get in the first saltwater fishing in Florida in the morning, and then some peacock bass after that. Unfortunately, the morning bite was not very good on the beach or in the lagoon, but Noah caught a small redfish and Sonny and I caught small jack crevalle, so it wasn't a complete failure. But the bite was slow so it wasn't too long before we gave up on the salt and drove a ways south to get to one of Sonny's peacock bass spots. 

Now, I must admit I was a bit skeptical about this peacock bass thing. Don't get me wrong, I really wanted to catch some, and going to their native home in the Amazon is a bucket list trip, but I've felt for some time that there was no way they could live up too all the hype. After all, they are just an  over-sized cichlid. Not that the cichlids aren't cool, but how could these ones get so much more attention? I though somehow they might be a bit blown out of proportion. As we walked from the lot we parked in, across the bustling road, and up the street past the communities guarded entrance, I couldn't help but wonder... would I be underwhelmed, or would these fish live up to all the hype?

These fish are very structure oriented, and according to Sonny we were going to focus pretty much entirely on pipes and culverts. Slow sinking bright colored baitfish flies were the best producers, by far. The first culvert I fish had nobody home. The second culvert I fished gave me my first peacock. It followed the fly twice without touching it, then just pulled the trigger and swallowed it in one of the most visually stunning takes I've ever had. The ensuing fight then impressed me quite bit. That fish dug deep and hard, jumped and shook violently, and put my 5wt CGR to the test. Are they worthy of all the hype? I'm not sure. They probably aren't the baddest fish on the block anywhere they live. But they are still some tough kids.

Throughout the day Sonny and I were having much better luck coaxing fish to take flies than Noah was with spinning gear. Eventually sonny found a hot fish and I handed my 8wt off to Noah. It took three casts.

Sonny did by far the best, which is just as well since he's fished these waters before and we had no previous experience. I caught the one decent fish and a few small ones, but the bummer of the day for me was missing an absolute monster that came out from a rock and hammered my fly. These are butterfly peacocks, not the biggest species of peacock bass, so a big one is six or seven pounds generally. The one I missed looked all of six to me. These are fun fish to target and I would definitely go specifically after them again. 

We said our goodbyes to Sonny and continued on our mad tour of Florida, heading off towards the Tamiami Trail, where Noah and I would see some very different examples of peacock bass behavior the very next day.