Peacock Bass

Last year I headed down to south FL with one thing on the brain, peacock bass. My friend Jarrod and his friend Jay (from NEF.NET) had put this trip together and had a crew of guys getting together for this excursion. What was amazing is these guys had no guide or boat. The trip was planned based off of research, maps and previous trips. The fishing was done all on foot with back packs strapped to our backs and allot of walking and pond hopping. I lost count on how many different spots we fished. Some spots that looked good off the highway we literally pulled over to fish.

It was a no frills trip with to many guys crammed in a hotel room and pretty much fast food and convenience store food to nourish us during that whole week. Which was fine by me. However I did flip the bill for some pizzas and ice buckets of cold bottled beer as a thanks to the guys for letting me tag along. I really had the itch to catch some FL peacocks, so I was grateful to have the opportunity.

As I had hoped we got into some FL butterfly peacock bass. Things started off real slow but after a tip on a couple of spots from someone who one of the guys (Jay) knew the action picked up. Along with some additional exploring we found some other locations with fish. The peacocks were on their beds and were hitting almost anything you threw at them. Everyone within the group caught fish, as well as lots of numbers of them. The best spot was one we found accidentally while trying to find another spot. This fluke find ended up being the big fish spot and where the largest fish of the trip were caught, including Jarrod's trophy.

It goes to show with some planning, leg work and a sense of adventure, can yield some great rewards. Southern FL has plenty of peacocks and with some internet research and exploring you won't need a guide. So head down to Southern FL if you've got the itch for peacock bass.