Peacock bass on the fly, 17 January, 2022
Capt. Bob LeMay
January 19, 2022
Alligator Alley - Saltwater Fishing Report
Earlier this week I was booked to fish out of Flamingo, a double boat trip with four anglers total, but on that day the weather was just awful - a combination of a strong cold front with high winds combined with a full moon tide (super high water, most of it very muddy from the high winds everywhere... ). What to do... Capt Mark Giaccobba suggested we switch gears and head for freshwater canals locally targeting peacock bass and the other assorted freshwater types... His suggestion saved the day and we were going to be fishing the canals along Alligator Alley (I-75 between Ft. Lauderdale and Naples - but on the Lauderdale side only thirty miles to the west...).
We got on the water just at dawn, ran a few miles to the west and found fish on a day when we'd have been skunked in the backcountry down at Flamingo... My anglers caught and released peacocks, oscars and other cichlids, as well as a short nosed gar fish - all on clouser variants on 1/0 hooks mostly, using 8wt rods... Here's a pic of our first peacock
[img]https://i.imgur.com/R59mYQH.jpg[/img]
Believe I'll have to do this more often. If not for those many freshwater canals, I'd have had to cancel that day's trip... Iv'e just gotten my first 5wt rod as well... When conditions allow it should turn any oscar or small peacock bass into a great encounter...
When the weather settles down this is the time of year to work up in the backcountry of the Everglades and sightfish snook, reds, speckled trout and others that move off of the coast and back up inside to find warmer waters - and that's what we'll be doing mostly. Watch weather fronts closely... in the next few weeks we'll hopefully get some mild weather and the giant tarpon will respond by coming in out of the Gulf and flooding up into Whitewater Bay and other shallow warm bays and nearby areas -long before the first big fish start showing up down in the Keys... just nothing like the 'glades... Of course if the inside waters stay cold.. we'll just have to wait until they do warm up some years...
At night our best chances will be evening trips to either Biscayne Bay or up to Jupiter to sight fish lighted docks or the shadows under bridges... Biscayne will be for small tarpon (averaging 20 to 40lbs) and snook.. Up in Jupiter it will be all snook and some lights will give up a half dozen snook before we move on to the next spot - all on light tackle with lures or fly rods in the 7 to 9wt range... great fun and a good way to get hooked up to that first tarpon for those using fly rods...
Tight lines
Bob LeMay
(954) 435-5666
"Be a hero... take a kid fishing"
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