Peacocks in South Florida... How far north have you caught one?

[agn54 0]

Years ago I caught a couple of peacocks in the canal along the old Tamiami Trail well past Dade Corners and the old barbecue pit (can't remember the name of that place but it was good). Oscars see to be able to tolerate the glades a lot better. I used to fish the L28 way out off the old trail in a jon boat and would catch tons of oscars and largemouths but never any peacocks way out there.

 

OP, north Broward is really the furthest north where the population has remained constant. They are regularly caught throughout Palm Beach but after bad winters they tend to move back down south. I remember reading about how they were pretty much absent from all of PB county after a particularly bad winter a few years ago but have probably long since returned.

Cant Bob, I remember as a kid seeing an article in the Herald about a guy who caught a huge pacu on a hotdog in Hidden Lake in Kendall. I had never even heard of one before that, and didn't even know there were fish in that lake either.

[Swamp Fly 0]

Capt. Sorry I missed your response the first time. I along with friends have been catching Peas along the Alley/Miami Canal for a decade or more. Not every trip, yet sometimes I'll catch a dozen in a day. The biggest I've caught is about 2.5-3 lbs, most average 1.5-2. They are a welcome by-catch. I have also seen but not caught them along the Trail as far west as a point between Midway and Monument. The airport lakes have some bigger fish in them, but those lakes are deep so the survival rate is probably pretty good. There is a healthy population starting at Holiday Park. I almost always get a grab or two when I run down that far from the Alley.

 

I don't fish those waters all year, just during the dry season. When the fish are stuck in the canals the hook up rate can get stupid. Great fun on panfish sized gear. That is over for this year, especially after this week...

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

You're right about the rains.... Now that the rain machine is going full blast we have to be careful which rivers we fish along the coast of the 'Glades since some of them that drain into salt will be so solidly freshwater that you might have to stay three or four miles offshore to find decent salt....

 

That late winter/early spring dry season really does turn on every canal along the Trail since there's just no water up in the sawgrass then. The fish have to be in the canals - there's no water for them anywhere else...

[Fisherboy0301 0]

I have a buddy who has a nearly 2lb red bellied piranha on his wall. He caught it wipe bass fishing on lake Dora. It hit a Rat-L-Trap. All he can figure is that someone got rid of their fish tank by dumping it in the lake.

[mikechell 0]

I have a buddy who has a nearly 2lb red bellied piranha on his wall. He caught it wipe bass fishing on lake Dora. It hit a Rat-L-Trap. All he can figure is that someone got rid of their fish tank by dumping it in the lake.

There are a lot of articles nation wide, of people catching the odd piranha in local waters. Piranha are very intolerant of cold temperatures and don't do well in any U.S. waterway. The warming trend of the planet, lately, might change that.

However, the only article I can find about piranha in Lake Dora is a person who caught a Red Bellied Pacu. Pacu look like piranha, but do not have the ability to shear flesh.

If your friend has PROOF he caught it in Lake Dora ... and it IS a piranha ... he needs to contact authorities and report his catch.

[caloosa bug 0]

I've never seen one here in Hendry or Glades county. Too many cichlids though. I'm about to make the hour drive south and chase some. I've been telling my wife I'm going one day soon. I did get a clown knife fish over in Palm beach county.. pretty cool fish.

[Bimini15 0]

Clown knife fish. That and a snake head are the next surprise catches I am hoping for.

[mikechell 0]

I'm reviving this thread, because there's mention of Florida Snakeheads.

I just read an article that the Snakeheads are in full spawn.

Anyone catching them?

[FlatsRoamer 0]

Ive never caught one here. Closest thing Ive seen was a mudfish...

 

Guys catch them all the time up north a bit in broward county. They find shallow grass beds or any kind of shallow area where the fish can lay low and ambush his prey, and throw white topwater frogs at them. Fly guys use gurglers for them... thats really all I know

[caloosa bug 0]

I've never seen, or heard of any here around Lake O. Yet.

[caloosa bug 0]

Big little surprise this morning in the Clewiston city canals. This is certainly the first I've heard, or seen regarding peacocks around lake o. Maybe it's global warming, or the mild winter last year. I don't see them surviving a January cold front though. Still was a sweet little surprise.

[FlatsRoamer 0]

Those little guys would be perfect for a tank. If they don't make it south they definitely won't survive unfortunately.

 

I have actually never caught a small one like that. I find that they are the harder to catch than the big ones, somehow. I'll probably whip up some #6 clousers and maybe try to get a couple

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

One of the constant features of living down here in paradise (south Florida) is that we're literally on the edge of the tropics so fish can survive here that wouldn't make it just a hundred miles to the north... Combine that with our "ten year weather cycle" and you can get some strange things happening... I expect at least one or two really cold winters in every ten year cycle - the kind that will include sudden killing cold snaps. During warm years (sometimes quite a few in a row) tropical fish like peacocks, cichlids, and yes everyone's favorite -the snook... will gradually expand their range to the north. Come that killing cold winter and their range will be greatly cut back (and folks will be wringing their hands about cold snap fish kills...). I've actually been on the water up in rivers that drain down into Whitewater Bay (the Roberts, the North, and the Watson) and seen cold stunned snook floating at the surface still alive at dawn... If the morning warms up quickly enough those same fish will turn over and swim away... If it doesn't warm up enough any snook that wasn't able to get to deeper, warmer waters simply won't survive... Peacocks and cichlids are pretty much the same -when the water gets cold enough they're gone...

 

I remember the biologist that ran that very first peacock stocking program in the Miami area (almost forty years ago now if memory serves) specifically saying to the club that I belonged to back then, the Tropical Anglers, that they chose the Peacock because it simply couldn't live outside of south Florida.... Yeah, you'll hear about some exceptions after a few warm years -but we'll go back to an occasional really cold year soon enough (don't tell the politicians, though - to them it would be sacrilege to question that new "religion").