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.  

The Wildlife You See While Fly Fishing in Florida

While out fly fishing I am always on the lookout for other wildlife or participate in other adventures like airboat rides in the everglades.

The freshwater canal furthest south in Florida is the Aerojet canal.  It borders the Everglades National Park.  Brooke and I went exploring this canal one day and although we didn’t catch any peacock bass, we did find a lot of wildlife.  The first thing we saw was two manatees.  One was surfacing towards where the canal comes in from the Atlantic Ocean.  The other was near the salinity control structure.  It was resting with its back out of the water where I could see moss, algae or some other green plant material growing on it. Not seeming too exiting, I did not take any pictures of them, although now I wish I had.  A lesson I should have learned long ago is to take more pictures than I think I want.  It may be boring at the time while I’m interested in getting the fly in the water, but later on at home the photo may be fun and interesting to see.

We hiked along the Southern Glades Trail, fishing along the way.  

At the South Dixie Highway bridge I managed to catch a Mayan Cichlid.  Other than that, the fishing was very slow. This canal is pretty straight and featureless.

Brooke climbed upon a rickety old dock which was missing a few boards.  As she was fishing off the dock I noticed a crocodile along the far side of the canal. 

Bringing this to her attention, she quickly stood up to get off the dock. 

By this time the crocodile had started making its way toward her but then eased its way back to shore once Brooke was off the dock.  Just down from the crocodile you could see its haunt, a nest of broken down plants. 

Hiking back to the salinity control structure the manatees were no longer there.  Brooke had found some small fish on the saltwater side that were interested in her lure.  They kept nibbling on the rubber fish part until it was almost gone.  Handing the pole to me I lowered what was left of the lure near the fish and quickly jerked up on the next nibble.  This hooked one of the fish and as I lifted it out of the water Brooke gently grabbed a hold of it.  It was making some funny, whimpering noises and as it wiggled Brooked held it tighter.  

I guess a little too tight for the fish’s comfort and it puffed out into a soft prickly ball.  

I removed the hook and Brooke threw the puffer fish back into the brackish water.

Fly Fishing For Peacock Bass In Florida, Part 2

There is an impressive double decker tree house in the back yard of one of the houses that lines one of the small lakes on the canal.  I caught several larger than usual peacock bass here.  

One in particular, I fought for ten or fifteen minutes.  It started out with some acrobatic jumps then each time I brought it close enough to see it would take out line.  Eventually the fly popped out and the fish was gone. 

We then kept fishing the canal which continued on through the other side of the lake.  By now it was starting to get late and I had asked Mark if he would show me other methods of fishing besides fly fishing.  Top water lures are often used to fish for peacock bass.  These are floating plugs with or without propellers.  They are cast out and then “popped” back in with a series of jerks to cause a disturbance on the water to get the fish’s attention.  I didn’t catch any fish on any of the various styles and colors of plugs that I tried. 

Next Capt Mark showed me how to fish with shiners.  Using a circle hook, you hook the shiner through the lips.  With a small amount of weight up a couple of feet from the bait you cast it behind the boat 10 to 20 feet and slowly troll.  This method worked extremely well as we worked our way back to the lake going through several tunnels.  By now the sun was starting to set and it was time to start heading back to the park.  On our way back we swung by the place on the lake where I lost that big peacock bass.  We could see it sulking in the exact same location where I hooked it the first time.  My cast was right on and the bass immediately took the bait.  The fight was on again.  After a shorter fight of maybe 5 to 10 minutes I was able to bring it to the boat.  

What a huge, beautiful fish!  I grabbed it by the lower lip and hefted it up to the boat for pictures.  

It measured 21 ½ inches long and weighed 5.3 pounds, although with its enormous girth, it looked like it should have weighed much more.  I held it in the water as Capt Mark took some underwater pictures before letting this trophy Peacock Bass swim off.  What a glorious way to finish the guided trip.

Fly Fishing For Peacock Bass In Florida

When I found out that my son was going to be moving to Miami to attend graduate school, I immediately googled fly fishing in southern Florida.  

I was delighted to find out there are Peacock Bass in the canals there.  I have seen the amazing pictures of these fish from the Amazon in the magazines and always wished I would have a chance to fly fish for them.  A little further research showed that Butterfly Peacock Bass has been transplanted into the canals of southern Florida (1984-1987).  Florida needed a way to control the invasive species illegally introduced into the canals and the water temperature was tolerable for the peacock bass.  I hired a guide to show me best way to approach fly fishing for this spectacular species. 

I met the guide, Capt Mark, at the Coral Reef Park.  This was a convenient location that my son's family has been to a few times.  The park has an exercise circuit with a running trail and weight lifting machines interspersed.  My son dropped me off in the morning at the park on his way to school.

The canal system that runs through this park in Palmetto Bay is called the Cutler Drain Canal.  It is 30 to 80 feet wide with an average depth of 12 feet.  Lining the canals are Palm Trees and other beautiful plants that can be seen on people’s backyards that back onto the canals.

Capt Mark was waiting for me in his bass boat/skiff which had a large motor and a trolling motor with remote control.  We rigged up our 6 and 7 weight fly rods with streamers that resembled a small colorful peacock bass. The 7 weight rod had sinking line and my 6 weight rod had floating line.  

Capt Mark explained the nature of Peacock Bass, that they are carnivores and only eat moving fish.  He recommends imparting movement to the fly by twitching the streamer with the rod tip and then stripping in line and repeating.  This gives a fast jerky motion to the streamer making it look like a wounded bait fish or one that is about to escape. 

I caught a small Peacock Bass right away.  It was probably 10 inches long.  That was a good fish to break the ice and have one caught while still beginning the day.  These fish have a false eye near the tail that is black outlined by yellow.  Sometimes the spot is perfectly round and singular; other times there are a couple smaller false eyes and sometimes they kind of morph together.  

They have three vertical black stripes down their bodies, but again, they all vary.  Some have dark stripes and others are very faint.  Some have various black-green and yellow spots while others have very few spots.  As they begin to spawn, they get a bright orange color underneath and the older males grow a hump on top behind the head.

One thing I was amazed with was the temperament of the Peacock Bass.  When hitting a streamer, they would hit it fast and with full force, same thing fighting.  They would fight hard, sometimes jumping and sometimes just dogging it, taking the line down deep or into the weeds.  But once you brought the fish to hand, they wouldn’t flop around or wiggle, they would just calmly let you take out the fly, even if it was deep.  

They would let you hold it for pictures without feeling like you were going to drop it.  They would lie still while taking its measurements.  When you placed them back into the water, they wouldn’t turn over on their side and make you worry that they were hurt; they would stay right side up and quickly swim right away.  Although a net may have been useful at times, with their big mouths, similar to a large mouth bass, it was easy to grab them by their lower lip and lift them out of the water.  They don’t have sharp teeth but kind of sandpaper like teeth so you won’t get cut or scraped by their teeth but by the end of the day the skin on your thumb will be a little rough.

Action this day was pretty constant, catching various sizes of fish ranging from 10 to 21 inches long at roughly half hour intervals.  Because these canals are in the city, we were able to pull over to the bank of one the arms of the canals and hop out to run over to Wendy’s for Baconators and strawberry lemonade for lunch.  

Loading Fly Rods Into The SUV With Rodmounts RodLoft PRO™ Rod Holder

Packing up the SUV for fishing trips I notice that the fly rods take up a lot of the precious floor space.  Keeping all the camping gear, cooler and other supplies from falling on top of the rods is an issue.  Also fitting two piece rods in the SUV when the tent, cots, portable table and camping chairs are taking up the space right behind the front seats is difficult.  It would be nice to have rods on a holder near the ceiling so I can stack everything else in the back without worrying about the rods getting damaged or only being able to use half the back for equipment because the rods are taking up the rest of the floor space.  Searching on the internet I found a few options.   

The RodLoft Pro by RODMOUNTS seemed the best option with the best reviews.   

When Tackle Direct sent me a coupon for 20% off during the month of my birthday I decided to order one and to give it to my wife to give me for my birthday.   

They also sell them on line at Cabela’s, however they don’t carry them in the store and they are more expensive than Tackle Direct.

The RodLoft comes with six options for attachment.  

I ended up using the Grab Bar mounting option for the front set of holders and using the Topper Bracket option for the rear set.   

The other mounting options are Suction Couplers, Garment Hook, Oversize Garment Hook, and Molding Bracket.   

Telescopic rods snap into swiveling holders which is best to put together before attaching the attachments to the inside of the SUV to avoid getting pinched. 

The package comes with two rod holder sets which hold three rods each.  

There is an option to purchase more sets.   

Using the Grab Bar mount in the front I was only able to make the front holders fit in the down position.  

For the rear rod holders, I tried the holders in the up position and in the down position.  It worked both ways but I could see out the back better with them in the up position.   

Extra rod holders are available for purchase.  Adding a third set would allow you to carry nine rods.  Adding extra holders for the top and bottom positions, I could configure enough to carry 18 rods in my SUV, allowing me to only leave a few of my extra rods at home.

For this last trip I took to the Wind River, the RodLoft worked like a charm.  I took six rods all assembled and ready to fish.  I took no rod cases and rods took up no space on the floor.  When I got to the river I just pulled whichever rod out I wanted to use without having to take time to string the fly line through the guides because the rod had already been assembled at home.  Switching from rod to rod was easy and made it so I was willing to switch from one style to another because I knew I didn’t have to take the time to rig up with another rod and presentation.