Freshwater Paradise
Fishing the Lakes of Palm Beach County

By Jan S. Maizler
Article & Travel Editor
Photos By Captain Ken Collette & Jan S. Maizler

Many anglers experience "good" days in their angling adventures- but the rarer, truly "great" days are the ones that add the shiny luster to the best recollections of our fishing life on the water. I'm glad to say that a recent fall trip that Captain Ken Collette and I took with Captain Butch Moser into the lakes of Palm Beach County will glow in my mind for a long time! What is so special about these freshwater forays is that they provide the kinds and numbers of species one generally associates with the faraway Amazon or the desert lakes of Mexico, yet all this action is barely an hour's drive from Miami.

I've made past trips with Butch and gotten thoroughly used to 100-plus fish days on peacocks up to 4 pounds mixed in with some largemouth bass. What made this most recent trip an exciting prospect were the results of a periodic inquiry call I give Butch every few months. Butch mentioned that the pleasant weather South Florida was experiencing had created a super abundance of big schools of sunshine bass that were busting bait as the day dawned over Lake Ida. In addition, the friendly weather had all the species feeding. Clown knifefish to 20 pounds were rolling. Fat peacocks were staging for their Fall spawn on any structure. And not far from them were some huge largemouth bass that were feeding on the abundant shad schools in this friendly, "happy" weather. There were even some fat, rose-colored Mayan cichlids grabbing up the baits that the larger gamefish had neglected.

With all of this action, I made an immediate date to fish with Butch that following Friday. This was the first day he had open and was still a day that would not see great pressure from other boats. I called Ken to see if he wanted "in" on all this hot fishing and take a needed break from poling the flats. He immediately agreed to come along to fish as well as to photograph the magic. During the week, both of us prayed the weather would hold…and it did!

How Butch Does It

Butch has a specially designed Carolina Skiff that is an excellent and roomy workboat that is far more comfortable and stable than a bass boat. The most striking feature of his rig is a massive livewell that's almost as large as a bathtub: this gives Butch the capacity to keep huge quantities of live bait shad. This forms the rudiments of his style of angling- so incredibly productive, because it relies on not just live bait fishing, but copious live bait chumming. Savvy anglers know how successful this method is with snook, mackeral, and even tarpon. And, frankly, when a writer goes on these fishy forays, readers are rarely pleased to hear about "shots", but rather want good results in action, releases, and the images and words that tell the tale.

Butch keeps a standard arsenal of six ultralight spinning outfits at the ready. They are either rigged straight to a small light gauge wire hook or else deployed with an adjustable float and split shot rigged about six inches above the hook. Butch makes a practice of fishing with his customers as he loves the high numbers of released fish. Depending on where the fish are holding, Butch may slow-troll, drift, or fish "on the anchor." Naturally, the placement of the hook in the bait may change depending on the boat's angling deployment. As his skiff is loaded with rod holders, it's not unusual when pinpointing action for Butch and his anglers to fish one bait "free" and the other under a float. Once the fish turn on, it's simply too difficult to manage the ongoing double hookups and anglers stick to one rod.

Let's Do This!

Ken and I arrived just as dawn broke over Lake Ida Park. We could see the silhouette of Butch's skiff berthed against the bank. We quickly grabbed our gear, locked the car, and climbed aboard his skiff. Butch smiled and pointed to his livewell. It was filled solid with live bait and we were grateful that his netting was over so we could get straight to the fishing.

Butch fired up his engine and headed for a nearby bridge. He nosed-hooked three baits for each of us and began a slow troll powered only by his bow-mounted electric motor. We headed for the center arch with great anticipation. Butch's vessel passed through the bridge and as we emerged, Ken's rod doubled over with a hard strike. After a round-the-boat battle of five minutes, Ken had a beautiful peacock of about six pounds next to the boat.

After we released the battler, Butch started live chumming the bridge pilings as well as a dock that was off to our starboard. It wasn't long before the pops and swirls began as the three of us got into non-stop peacock action. It's good to be able to recall the kind of fishing that is so productive that we could turn to our guide and say, "let's try for something else." And, this was not hard to do as Butch pointed to some diving birds in the center of the next lake and simply said, "sunshine bass."

We quickly reeled in and Butch idled over to the action. Butch cut his engine and eased into the swirling area "on his electric." Rather than fishing tight to structure, we were in open waters of about 15 foot depths. I made a quick decision to fish a rig with a split shot and hooked up immediately. My rod doubled over and my drag sang out as my fish ran for about fifty feet. Butch was sure I'd hooked a big "sunshine." He was proven right a few minutes later as I brought a strikingly striped sunshine bass of around five pounds alongside the boat. I was impressed at how strong these fish were. Almost on ritual, Butch began chumming with live baits as well as faster-sinking tiny shad chunks. Once again, within less than a minute all of us were hooked up to hard-fighting sunshine bass. The three of us glutted ourselves on this action until we could take no more.

Butch told us that we could round off our trip with clown knifefish and largemouth bass. He explained that in contrast to the free-ranging sunshine bass, these two species would be feeding along the weed bed edges about two hundred yards away. So, within a couple minutes in this mini sweetwater paradise, we had our sights set on two more species. Ken and I knew from prior experience that the knifefish could be seen rolling just like tarpon- and indeed, this was the method for determining the skiff's fishing position.

It took about five minutes of scouting along the weed edges to see our first knifefish roll. Butch lowered the anchor to the bottom eight feet below to keep our vessel on point. As Butch chummed, he told Ken and I to fish one free bait and one weighted bait. After a ten-minute wait-, which seemed so long on a day I'd grown so spoiled-I had a good strike. I set the hook with all the pressure my six-pound line could muster. In moments, a nice knifefish of about fifteen pounds was airborne. After a gingerly ten-minute battle of jumps and surging runs, we had the battler in our possession for photos and release. We were able to release another of these amazing fish in the next thirty minutes.

Butch lifted the anchor and eased his skiff right alongside the weeds near an old large half-sunken tree. He then tossed a load of live chum towards this structure. Almost immediately, the tiny fish were engulfed in large swirls and pops. By now, Ken and I needed no coaching as our live baits were already airborne and plummeting into the melee. Again, like magic, a double hookup! When our hooked fish flashed bronze as they cleared the water, we knew we were in a largemouth bass honeyhole. Much like the peacocks, Butch's intense chumming produced non-stop action. My biggest largemouth of the day pushed the ten-pound mark and was the biggest specimen in my fishing career.

Butch Moser: Then and Now

Captain Butch proudly acknowledges a very long pedigree of fishing in various venues for over forty years since he was a child. Looking back, he reflected about starting inland, then spending a big stretch fishing offshore, and ultimately returning deep inland to the freshwater. He first started fishing as a hobby, but as he grew up, it became his life's work and labor of love. He has had stints as a charterboat captain for private clients as well as commercially hook and line fishing for kingfish,yellowtail, and grouper. About twenty years ago, it became clear to him that the fish stocks off theBoca/Delray Florida coast had declined. This trend made him turn his attention inland to the burgeoning fresh water fishing for largemouth bass and bluegills in the western canal system of Palm Beach County.

The factor that really turbocharged his freshwater guiding business was the stocking of this canal system with peacock bass. The "peacocks" flourished and created the makings of a "can't-miss" fishery that would delight any angler. While the peacocks were growing in popularity in Brazil's Amazon rivers, Butch could give anglers fair-sized specimens himself right in South Florida at a fraction of the costs of flying to South America. And in South Florida, peacock fishing was more reliable and not affected by the huge tides of the Amazon rivers. Other unintended bonuses such as the release of exotic tropicals into the freshwater lakes and canals gave anglers a chance to catch "aquarium" fish now grown to magical sizes. Butch decided the rest of his guiding career would be devoted to this exciting fishery.

Contact Data

Captain Butch Moser
Phone: 561-732-5996
Cell: 561-254-2790

See all the photos from the outing in Jan Maizler's Photo Gallery.