Gerald Almy: Florida's peacock bass fishing | Nvdaily | nvdaily.com - Northern Virginia Daily

Gerald Almy: Florida's peacock bass fishing | Nvdaily | nvdaily.com - Northern Virginia Daily

Gerald Almy: Florida's peacock bass fishing | Nvdaily | nvdaily.com - Northern Virginia Daily

Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:00 PM PDT

When Frank Carbone's surface lure sputtered across the weed-covered point and disappeared in a spray of water, I was thrilled. The guide had clearly found out where at least one large fish was holed up.

Unfortunately, the hooks didn't connect.

"Toss your bait in there," he said. "Throw it right to that clump of weeds where I got my strike."

Flipping my offering toward the spot, I watched as the line shot sideways, then jammed the hook home. A heavy fish lunged through the water. But just as quickly, the unseen fish burrowed into the weeds and snapped the line.

"That fish had to easily go 6 pounds," the guide said. "What a brute."

What was the fish that had snapped my line like a piece of thread? Not a largemouth. In fact, it was a belligerent peacock bass. But if you think this exciting action occurred in some exotic location like Venezuela or Brazil, think again.

Carbone and I were in south Florida. We had launched his bass boat next to the Miami Airport on Blue Lagoon Lake. From there we had simply used the electric motor to ease over to a patch of weedy cover across from the ramp.

As the day wore on, we fired up the outboard and tried other spots in that lake. We also cruised up the many canals winding through south Florida, trying various types of structure such as bridge abutments, docks, sunken trees and the like. We even fished boat docks in front of the Miami Airport Hilton Hotel.

Virtually everywhere we went, we latched onto peacocks. Some were just a pound or two, while others weighed twice that much and put a heavy strain on the light rods.

By mid-afternoon we had tussled with dozens of these exotic, hard-fighting bass. We caught them on lures, on bait, and I even latched onto a few on flies.

The background of how the peacock bass was successfully introduced into south Florida is an interesting story, and one that relatively few people know about. And that's a shame. After all, Miami's a lot easier to get to than the jungles of South America.

The history of peacock bass in Florida dates back over half a century. Biologists tried planting these fish in Florida in ponds in the 1960s, but the fish soon died. Fishery biologist Paul Shafland was still convinced the gamefish might be able to make it in the southern part of that state. "Peacocks need water that does not drop below 60 degrees," he said.

One spot he was aware of where that need could be met was in the canals of urban Broward and Dade counties. Protected from cold fronts by trees and houses, they also cut into the Biscayne Aquifer, providing further warming. Making the setup even more appealing was the fact that a small exotic fish – the tilapia – was overrunning the canals. There was a biological need for a large finned predator to control it.

One fish stood out that could solve that problem: the peacock bass.

Starting in October 1984, 20,000 peacock fingerlings from Brazil, Peru and Guyana were deposited in the 1,200 mile canal system. The rest is history. The peacocks thrived and are now successfully reproducing. And they offer spectacular angling.

Both butterfly and speckled peacocks live in the canals. Butterflies are the most prolific, but the speckled grow larger, according to Shafland. So far, peacocks topping 10 pounds have been caught, with 1 to 2 pounds an average fish. The catch rate is an impressive one fish per hour, compared to largemouths in the canal, which are caught at the rate of one per four hours of effort.

Some of the best spots to try include the C-103 canals near Homestead, and those around Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach and the Tamiami Trail. The lakes near the Miami Airport that are part of the Tamiami (C-4) canal system are also good, as is the Snake Creek Canal, which parallels the Dade and Broward County border. The Black Creek (C-1) Canal in southern Dade County and the Bel Air Canal (C-100 Series) are also top spots to go after peacock bass in Florida.

Productive lures include lipless crankbaits, shallow-diving minnow plugs, soft plastic jerkbaits, topwater plugs, worms and tube lures. Fly fishermen connect on peacocks with minnow imitations such as the Clouser Minnow, Zonker and Marabou Muddler. If you're going after big fish, even tarpon flies will work.

If you don't mind fishing with bait, nothing can top a lively shiner. As a rule, search the same type of cover you'd fish for largemouths and you'll score on peacock bass.

Note: This trip was made before COVID-19. I'd suggest waiting until this virus is under control before heading off to Miami, one of the worst spots in the world right now.

Study uncovers camouflage traits of ultra-black fish in deep, dark sea - The Washington Post

Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:02 PM PDT

They studied 16 species that fit this definition of ultra-black. These spanned six different orders of fish — large groupings that each have a shared evolutionary history — indicating this modification evolved independently in all of them.

"In the deep, open ocean, there is nowhere to hide and a lot of hungry predators," said zoologist Karen Osborn of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, a co-author of the research published in the journal Current Biology. "An animal's only option is to blend in with the background."

Very little sunlight penetrates more than 650 feet below the ocean's surface. Some of these fish reside three miles deep.

At such depths, bioluminescence — light emission by living organisms — is the only light source. Some of the ultra-black fish have bioluminescent lures on their bodies to coax prey close enough to be eaten.

The skin of these fish is among the blackest material known, absorbing light so efficiently that even in bright light they appear to be silhouettes, as Osborn discovered when trying to photograph them after they were brought to the surface.

The pigment melanin is abundant in this skin and distributed in an unusual fashion. By packaging perfectly sized and shaped melanosomes — pigment-filled structures within the skin cells — into tightly packed and continuous layers at the skin's surface, the fish ensure that essentially all light reaching them will hit this layer and never escape.

"This mechanism of making thin and flexible ultra-black material could be used to create ultra-black materials for high-tech optics or for camouflage material for night ops," Osborn said.

— Reuters

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