Finally, A Trophy Peacock Bass

It took me three years of hard work and hot sweaty days on the water in Miami, but I finally got my 5 pound trophy Peacock Bass. This year I set aside three days, hoping that I could boat a trophy the first days and spend the rest of the time fishing other Florida waters. It didn't work quite that way. I did manage to catch 51 peacocks, but it wasn't until the afternoon of the second day that I landed the big one.

As usual, I recorded all of my caches on this trip and again they were consistent throughout the daytime hours, as shown in this plot of my catch rate.

I did notice that the waters of the Miami canals are now much cleaner than they were three years ago, with the bottom and many of the fish in clear view. BUT! I also observed that the Peacocks are getting smaller as the water is cleaned. 

I fished the everglades on the third day and made the same observation. Southern Florida has spent millions of dollars cleaning up the canals and the waters of the everglades, but the everglade bass were still biting in large quantities but the bass are smaller than I had ever before observed. This may be another example of my concern that there is a conflict between those who want clean waters and those who want to catch big fish.

Again this year I fished with my friend Chuck Westlake who guides these Florida waters.

350 pound Blue marlin at Hatteras

You might not believe it but I spent a few days at Hatteras doing some salt water fishing. That's right, me the freshwater guy fishing in salt water. A few of us from the Harbour Fishing Club spent a few day there to try and fill our freezers with fish. I'm going to make a long story short here, I caught a 9 foot, 350 pound Blue Marlin. We were fishing on the Hatteras Fever II, looking for Mahi Mahi and Tuna and whatever else was running and legal. We took the 53 foot boat out 30 miles off shore to the west edge of the gulfstream. It was nearly time to return when I was in the fighting seat and got a tremendous hit. Short story, two hours later, after fighting this monster for two hours, with wind and driving rain, 12 foot breaking waves and a 30 know wind, I had the beast close to the boat. Nearly all of the 1100 yards of line had been retrieved. All of the sudden the fish made a tremendous run and took out over 1000 yards of line. I was exhausted and decided that I could not go another round.I let Rich Doering take the seat. he fought the fish for another hour and 40 minutes, when suddenly the fish made two hard pulls and the fight appeared to be over. Rick brought the fish to the surface but a shark had killed it by taking two large bites out of its stomach. We did manage to get a couple of photos. Marlins are not a fish that we eat, so we simply left it for the predators. Marlins are normally returned live after being caught and photographed. The mate got hold of the fish for a quick photo shown here. This was a life's experience that I will not soon forget.