Midas Cichlids, Turtles and Manatees in South Florida Canals

During previous trips to Miami I would notice a fish in the canals that looked like a golden bluegill.  I looked up the species and it turns out to be a Midas Cichlid.  

Peacock Bass are also in the Cichlid family but more closely resembling a bass than a bluegill.  These Midas Cichlids are real wary and tough to fool. 

They seem to sense when you are on a nearby bank and maybe they have to be since they are so easy to spot.  They haven’t ever taken the larger flies that I use for the Peacocks so on this trip I put on a small woolly bugger.  After spotting one, I stayed back a bit from the bank and cast the fly further out and stripped it in close to where it was located.  It struck.  

It put up a small fight until I hoisted it onto the bank. On shore it was calm, similar to the peacocks and allowed me to extract the fly and take pictures without a struggle. 

Later that same day, I noticed a turtle resting with its head out of the water.  Since I had a turtle actually hit my lure the day before, I brought my fly close to it.  The turtle didn’t strike the fly but the fly foul hooked the turtle in the shell and I was able to bring it to bank after an awkward struggle. 

The most surprising bit of wildlife I saw was a manatee swimming right by me in the canal.  This is on the fresh water side of the salinity stations and usually I only see them on the salt water side.  

News in the local newspaper that week was that the manatee may be taken off the endangered list soon. 

The weather this week was a bit cooler, with daytime temperatures in the low seventies and at night reaching into the sixties.  This being the case, the peacock bass were deep.  

Usually you find them hanging out in the plant and rocks near shore and you fish your streamer accordingly.  

It took me some time to figure out I needed to cast near the middle and deepest part of the canal.  

Using a sink tip line, I would let the weighted streamer sink for a few seconds before slowly stripping and teasing it in.  The fishing was slow with the peacocks being mostly sluggish but I did manage to coax a few of the mid-sized ones into striking.