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

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I was elated this week when a peacock jumped on my dragonfly concoction. First ever and no idea we had any in our neighborhood lake, so imagine the surprise.

So, my question... How far north in FL have you actually caught a peacock?

Mine was just north of Hypoluxo Road in Lake Worth.

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Rumor was years ago that there was a population in Vero for a while. Never witnessed it personally but the sources were reliable. I really don't fish north of the Alley so I could not tell you for certain. West Palm certainly has them, but I would not expect to find anything much north of there. Perhaps in Jupiter. The population expands and contracts with with the periodic hard freezes. I do know they are in the Golden Gate canals in Naples but that is west not north which is what you are asking.

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Im in port richey, just north of Tampa. No peacock here

Yeah our side of the state has more cooling hours on average that the same latitude on the east coast. Kind of a bummer when to comes to the exotics. Rather live here though...

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It's worth it if you drive down and fish literally any open canal in Miami . You will see them guarding their nests or bedding

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True enough, watched a pair 3 feet from the boat for about 15 min a couple of weeks ago.

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Do locals catch and release the peacocks? Are they even edible? How big do they get in your area? How do they impact LMB populations? Wanna trade for some snakeheads?

 

Rocco

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Yes it is 98% catch and release. From what I heard, they taste OK and not worth it to keep one. And don't EVER keep one from a canal,pond, or lake because they are full of the crap in the water.

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Remember why peacocks were stocked in the first place? Every seven to ten years down here in paradise we'll get a killing cold snap with resulting losses among fishes that must have a certain minimum water temp to survive (hard as it is... we're at the northern end of what snook and others need to survive a bad cold snap). That's the reason that the peacock bass (two sub-species were stocked, if memory serves) was the choice all those years ago. They simply must have the deepwater urban canals to survive bad cold snaps. In between those killing events both snook and peacocks will expand their ranges to the north year after year. Come that deadly event and their populations get cut back considerably. By the way, one of the key considerations way back when the decision was made to stock the peacock was that they wouldn't be able to live in the 'Glades (no deepwaters to protect them from cold kills.). It's worked out great and many local anglers have particular favorite areas to fish them. Most that I know would never consider eating them since our local drainage canals are heavily dosed with every chemical known - from run-off with fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides (where do you think everything on that nice green lawn goes when it rains?) and stronger stuff like what comes off of our urban roadways....

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I'm going to have to disagree with FR on catch and release. Many many are kept, we have as many meat fishermen as anywhere else. The population seems to be stable so it is a mute point. Two species of peacock were released in to Florida waters, the Butterfly peacock and the Speckled Peacock. Because the Speckled does not become reproductively mature until it is larger than the minimum size limit of the Butterfly, and people can/could not tell the difference in the field, only the butterfly has done well. I'm not sure there are any Speckled left. Since they get much larger than the Butterfly we would be seeing photos. A nice peacock catch here in Florida is 5-8 pounds.

 

Eating quality is said to be excellent. Personally I have never eaten one, however I have friends that fish for them in the Amazon regularly and invariably they are part of a shore lunch at least once per trip and I'm told they taste very good. If the Oscars and Mayan Cichlids that we have here are any indication I would have to agree since both are rather tasty. A fact I reaffirm as often as I can since both are exotic invasive species and on the state hit list (no size or bag limit).

 

Peacock bass were release by the state in 1984 under the guidance of Paul Shefland with the intent of having them control the smaller exotic invasives. Whether or not the release has helped or not is up to debate. If you were to have a gathering of scientists and fishermen to discuss that, I'm sure the debate would devolve into an all out brawl in short order with chairs being thrown within the respective groups not just at each other. One thing is certain and that is that peacocks are here to stay along with all the other exotics. I also know that there are extremely healthy populations of exotics of all stripes. How much worse it would be without the Peacocks I don't know. I think that peacocks are voracious eaters and that the exotics make a target rich environment for them so I'd wager that they eat more exotics than natives. Where I fish I have noticed that the native fish do much better for a number of years after a hard freeze (which kills exotics by the millions) so I would have to say we are better off with the peacocks than without but that is purely anecdotal.

 

LOL you can keep your Snakeheads, we already have a thriving population of our own species of Snakehead. The fishery has not collapsed, the sky has not fallen, children aren't being eaten, churches aren't being razed to the ground, we just have one more player to deal with (and catch!). Snakeheads probably eat more exotics than natives for the same reason peacocks do. We have a veritable Zoo here in FL both on land and in the waters. While I would rather have the "old" Florida back from an ecological point of view, that ship has sailed. Now I enjoy catching the new kids on the block as much as the old, perhaps even more at times. Lemons and lemonade.

 

ETA: I do agree with FR that I would not eat peacocks or any fish from some of the retention pounds. Chemlawn does very well here in FL.

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Capt Bob,

I have caught peacocks way out in the Glades (this year and every year), which is well beyond the range that was expected. I remember talking to a state biologist about peacocks out in the field while I was fishing. I was told I would never see them west of US 27, I responded that perhaps they should tell that to the half dozen fish I just caught less than a hundred yard away. we were miles west of 27. She asked if I was sure, to which I responded by giving her a full description. I'm afraid I did not make her day. I agree that they take a huge hit during freezes, but Darwinism will prevail and some will learn to bury themselves in the mud to keep warm. Some may even become more cold tolerant from a biologic point of view. That genetic knowledge will prevail and the range will expand but only to a point. Physics is physics, too cold is too cold, even being in the mud will not help below a certain number of cooling hours.

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I was elated this week when a peacock jumped on my dragonfly concoction. First ever and no idea we had any in our neighborhood lake, so imagine the surprise.

So, my question... How far north in FL have you actually caught a peacock?

Mine was just north of Hypoluxo Road in Lake Worth.

Every once in a while I'm just south of you is S. Palm.

 

Anyways, only had peacock in Puerto Rico...

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Swamp -you're the first I've heard from about Peas being way out to the west of the urban areas - thanks for the heads up. I've heard of a few over near Naples, but figured that some enterprising anglers had loaded a few in a live well and brought them to their home canals/ponds....

 

You're quite right about invasives everywhere - more than 20 years ago (before I took up guiding...) I caught a big (around 10 lbs) pacu out of Port of the Islands (it was Remuda Ranch years and years ago -but that was before they got caught and the place was shut down). You couldn't have surprised me more - the thing looked like a black permit at first and just piled onto a lure... The oscars did take a bad hit during that last cold kill though- We went from lots and lots of them everywhere in and near freshwater to none anywhere (and I'm talking way up in Tarpon Bay - a 27 mile run from Flamingo...).

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