Fly Fishing For The Exotic Species in Southern Florida

Oscars are aquarium fish that grow quite large?  They are native to South America and are one of the exotic fishes that have been illegally introduced into the Florida canals. There is no limit for how many you can keep.

They are dark in color, have a thick coat of protective mucus and they have a red or orange circle near the tail. 

Other exotic fish that may be caught are the Mayan Cichlid that I mentioned in the last post as well as Spotted Tilapia.  You may have heard of talapia from a restaurant or grocery store.  In fact, I ate tilapia at the restaurant at my work just last week.

The first time I fished one of the Florida canals I caught a Bluegill.  There are several other species of warm water fish in the canals such as crappie, sunfish and various catfish. 

The strangest fish present in some of the canals is the Longnose Gar.  My daughter-in-law Brooke caught one of these while we were exploring the various canals.  

Check out the teeth on this monster.

More common in the Florida canals is the Largemouth Bass.  One morning before catching a flight home, I was fishing a cream colored streamer and caught a nice sized Largemouth Bass.  

I also caught a couple largemouth while fishing for Peacock Bass with the quide I talked about in a previous blog. 

These Largemouth Bass are native to the Florida waters and are quite plentiful.  In fact one of their nicknames is the Florida Largemouth.  

An interesting thing about this particular morning was the number of iguanas along the canal sunbathing.  As I was walking along fishing, I would hear a splash every few feet.  I thought it must be turtles until I turned to look down the shoreline.  Iguanas were lined up and as I got too close to them they would jump in the water.