Creek and table encounters with Mr. Mayan | Outdoors | jhnewsandguide.com - Jackson Hole News&Guide

This character resembles a husky, ovalish mangrove snapper, yanks your tackle around like a giant trevally and on a dinner plate gives the most delicate of Dover soles a run for its money.

"Bruun's at it again," smirks the suspicious reader, "because that's all too good to be true."

Actually it's not. Your faithful scribe has grown extremely fond of both planned and surprise Mayan cichlid encounters during the last four South Florida winter visits.

Well-documented as world headquarters for invasive species wildlife disasters, the bottom portion of the Sunshine State involves pythons, walking catfish, lizards and iguanas, lethal citrus tree greening spread by an impossible-to-kill insect, fire ants, lion fish, feral pigs and cane toads.

Canals, lakes and waterways are crammed with the likes of illegal aquarium and aquaculture releases/escapees such as tilapia, oscars, goldfish, pacu, snakehead, jaguar guapote, clown knife fish, carp and various cichlids such as the butterfly peacock bass, Midas and Mayan.

The solo-positive invasive exception, the South American butterfly peacock bass, was raised in hatcheries and released in 1984 to chew down the fishy foreign intruders. Paul Shafland's innovative Non-Native Fish Laboratory devised this introduction by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Oscars from South America began as kids' aquarium pets. Unfortunately, from voracious cute little tropicals they soon pork up into bug-eyed, roundish Hulk Hogan-size lugs that quickly outgrow their aquarium spaces. Puzzled parents, at least those lacking industrial-size restaurant and doctor/dentist office aquariums, followed a path of least resistance. Dumping these tubby pets into nearby South Miami/Homestead freshwater irrigation canals was the oscar equivalent of tossing Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch.

By the late 1970s, oscars were blasting popping bogs and slurping small streamers presented by largemouth bass and bluegill fishermen on urban and Everglades canals.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission first recognized the astonishingly handsome Mayan cichlid presence in Florida Bay in 1983. Unlike oscars, however, Mayans are comfortable in both fresh and brackish water and are more cool-temperature resistant, having migrated as far north as Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee Lake chain and both St. Lucie River forks.

A hefty snook boated by Jackson fly-fishing outfitter Tom Montgomery, spit out the first Mayan cichlid I ever saw. This partially digested version appeared more than 20 years ago in Everglades National Park while I was fishing with Mark Ward of Naples, Florida.

Jean and I first caught Mayans as we chased largemouth and peacock bass in the C-111 Aerojet Canal on the Overseas Highway between Homestead and Key Largo. From our old johnboat we were casting popping bugs and yellow Whitlock Sheep Shad streamers toward sandy and gravelly clearings between shoreline bonnet patches. Our flies were still airborne when V-wakes suddenly raced toward the targeted landing zone.

Pow! Ferocious, hand-size brown, orange and green-striped fish tackled flies and charged in every direction while pumping huge boils to the surface. These guys were plenty of fun.

A few months later and 140 miles north at Buckhead Ridge on Lake Okeechobee's Rim Canal, we'd landed a half-dozen Mayans while hunting bluegill. Along came a couple aboard their restored Gillis Skip Jack Skiff, the once favorite craft of Lake O's long-ago catfish netters.

"We're using live minnows for Mayan cichlids," the owners of the legendary antique wooden skiff explained, "and we've landed two. They are terrific eating. You should try 'em," they emphasized.

Our artificial lure/fly fishing routines remain catch and release, even in the Okeechobee area populated by multiple electric knife owners who must cram freezers full of black crappie and bluegill. Our small Salt Marsh 14-foot skiff lacks live wells and adequate fish-keeping storage. The thought of a Mayan taste test wasn't totally abandoned.

In Central and South America Mayan cichlids are popular aquaculture products in many river, lake and pond facilities due to delicious flesh and perfect table size. Mayans aren't always in the mood to smash our smaller soft plastics, lures and flies and can become picky to fool. From March through May/June spawning periods, Mayans turn aggressive and strikingly bright orange, red and ultra green. Although rarely topping 1.5 pounds, they exercise any tackle. Downsizing to microlight 4-pound panfish/trout spinning gear elevates Mayans into the main event, as do 5-6 weight fly rods, small poppers and size 8 streamers on 2 and 3X leader.

May, Jean said, was time to literally take a bite out of the growing Mayan presence we'd been meeting. We added an ice slurry to a favorite six-pack soft Polar Bear cooler before reducing seven husky Rim Canal Mayans to possession. A slice under the gills bled each before entering the icy cooler.

Perfect skinless fillets, thanks to careful surgery with the best 7-inch Dexter Outdoors fillet knife I obtained for the procedure. Each pair of fillets was nearly transparent enough to read a magazine page through. Better yet they were sturdy and extremely mild after flour dusting, an egg wash dip before a 4C Breadcrumb coating and skillet frying in canola oil.

Mayan cichlids are commanding vast stretches of freshwater canal banks where we once regularly tangled with a variety of native Florida sunfishes and largemouth bass. In Miami and Fort Lauderdale freshwater-ways, the population density of oscars and Mayans is astounding. In a sheer tackle slugfest, the best fly and standard gear would be reduced to rubble if oscars and Mayans ever hit 10 pounds instead of averaging one to two pounds.

There is no limit on what are appropriately called the nuclear sunfish. Keep this in mind when icing some for dinner.

Prettyman has new job

When veteran outdoors reporter Brett Prettyman retired in 2015 from The Salt Lake Tribune, he signed with Trout Unlimited's national staff. One of the West's most accomplished outdoor journalists now joins Utah's Moran Eye Center as development editor to fulfill a mission to serve all eye issues locally and internationally. Given Brett's previously effective handiwork, he's the right man for this job that will benefit local as well as remote populations with free glaucoma surgeries and also raise $12.5 million.

Brett's hanging with Trout Unlimited to complete his Utah Cutthroat Slam obligations; visit UtahCutthroatSlam.org. Prettyman says $70,000 has already been collected from more than 3,500 paid registrations. Some 1,000 anglers will complete their cutthroat slams this year. The Moran Eye Center is fortunate to be employing one of the most capable talents I know.