A Peacock Bass Field Guide

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Peacock bass demonstrate three qualities that make them an ideal angling target: they are territorial; they mouth brood and they have ravenous appetites. Because they are so territorial, it is believed that a fairly high percentage of strikes will occur just because your lure or fly has violated their territory. Because peacock bass parents protect their young after birthing them for a period of time, they will assault a lure or fly because it is a threat to their offspring. The fry will actually scurry into the mouths of protective parents when a threat is present. Their ravenous appetites can best be exemplified by the vivid mental image of 12 to 14 inch long baitfish actually beaching themselves on sandbars to escape the onslaught of peacock bass on the feed. When one takes advantage of what will trigger a feeding or aggression response by peacock bass, it will increase the odds of landing more fish.

The Amazon watershed can be a fickle place to fish. You might go hours without a strike, yet find the right place, with peacocks in a feeding mood and you might be on fish every cast for 30 minutes.

Therefore, you've got to keep casting in order to determine just where the fish are and what they prefer in the way of lures or flies. Of course, certain structures and forms of cover will harbor more peacock bass than others, but the bottom line to be a successful angler is the more well placed casts you can make during the course of a fishing day, the more you will be rewarded for your efforts. Because of the large lures and flies necessary to coax trophy fish into striking, peacock bass fishing might be the most challenging type of fishing you'll ever experience. Combine 800 to 1000 casts over the course of a day with 96 degree heat and high humidity, you better be in shape when you decide on one of these trips.

One of the hardest lessons for the first-time peacock angler to learn is to keep the bait moving when a peacock bass, especially a trophy-size one, assaults, but misses, your lure or fly. The usual tendency is either one of astonishment, in which you simply gawk at the remnant of the demolition that just occurred in the water not but 25 feet in front of you, or set the hook so hard - because the sound of the strike startled you - that you almost kill your partner when the lure comes screaming at him.

Although easier said than done, when a peacock bass aggressively strikes your surface bait, don't hesitate or halt the retrieve. Continue to work the bait across the surface. Once you've triggered his aggression response or feeding behavior, this fish is more apt to assault the lure a second or third time if you maintain a rapid, fleeing-type retrieve. This scenario is most commonly seen when fishing topwater lures or flies.

If a fish repeatedly strikes, but misses a surface bait, grab another rod rigged with a jerkbait or bucktail jig, or in the case of a fly angler a subsurface fly and cast to the last place you saw the fish. Don't give up too easily on a "hot" fish; work the area at least five minutes with a variety of baits before moving on.

One of the main critiques that Amazon peacock bass guides have about their clients is that they fail to fish as a team and actually hinder each other's chances to catch more and larger fish. Let us imagine fishing a typical peacock bass lagoon in northern Brazil. Your guide has you positioned about 20 yards off the bank, one strewn with standing timber, blow-downs, points and tiny pockets. He has the trolling motor on the slow setting and you are heading down this ½-mile stretch of lagoon bank. The angler in the front of the boat should be casting ahead of the boat so, by the time he or she has made three or four rips of the topwater lure, the boat has now caught up to the place where the lure has entered the water. With the boat moving, if the lead angler were to cast to the bank perpendicular to the boat, by the time he or she has ripped the bait twice, it will be dragged behind the boat and now in the fishable water of the angler in the back of the boat. The typical rule for the angler in the rear of the boat is to cast forward as well, but never over the lead angler's line. By fishing in tandem, you will both cover the water thoroughly and effectively. To work properly as a team, the lead angler should cast to one part of potential fish-holding cover, allowing his partner enough of a target to cast to that cover. Or, perhaps anglers can alternate, the lead angler casting to the first blow-down tree, while the angler in the back of the boat takes the next one.

" This concept is the essence of pattern fishing," says Spence Petros. (www.spencpetros.com) "Basically, what we are referring to is to experiment with different lures and patterns and don't force your style on the fish. Far too many anglers get enamored with a certain bait or style of fishing and they are either going to catch fish using the bait or style of fishing or their not. Why not let the fish tell you what they want and how they want it presented?"

"Since the most exciting way to catch peacock bass is on a large, noisy surface bait or fly, by all means start out casting to likely looking cover and structure with these baits. In some cases, the fish want the baits moved very rapidly. Other instances might call for you to slow down before they'll take it. Sometimes the noise that a bait makes is important and you might need to change from a noisy propeller bait to a more subtle prop bait or even switch from propeller bait to a walking bait. In other words, the fish will take a surface bait, you just need to find the right action and sound to pique their interest."

"Sometimes, peacocks just won't strike surface lures and you'll need to go to a subsurface approach. If you've repeatedly casted a topwater bait to what you and your guide believe to be a productive looking piece of cover or structure without a strike, switch to a jerk bait."

In fisheries known more for their numbers as opposed to size, in many instances you'll encounter fish that are really aggressive. When fish travel in large schools, they compete for lures very aggressively. If you've generated a strike on a topwater lure, or perhaps on a subsurface jerkbait, but the fish has failed to take these baits, gaze into the water and look for the same fish, or others in that school to follow the bait to the boat. If this should occur, quickly thrust about two feet of the rod tip into the water, with about 12 -18 inches of line, and execute a figure of eight maneuver in the same manner that anglers attempt to entice aggressive muskies.

Even when one partner has a fish on, the other should look to the water to see if others in the school are trying to take the lure away from it. If so, have your partner bring the fish near boatside and either execute the figure of eight maneuver or cast a jig or jerkbait to the hooked fish for what should be an instantaneous strike.

Interestingly enough, this pattern contrasts to the one in which your guide will ask you to cast to what he believes is a fish-holding piece of cover or structure numerous times to generate a strike. The "run and gun" technique calls for anglers and their guides to fish only the high percentage spots.

The pattern develops as such: let's say you are fishing a variety of cover and structures, such as points, sandbars, islands, blowdowns, etc. You've had five strikes that morning and they've all come from sandbars with associated deepwater. Rather than continuing to fish the type of cover and structure that has not produced fish earlier, only target the sandbars, running from sandbar to sandbar making a few casts to see if fish are present before moving on to the next.

You've got to keep in mind, however, that various conditions can change the pattern, like sun or shade, dingy or clear water, current or no current and wind or no wind. Always look for new patterns to present themselves and then "run and gun" to these areas.

While the vast majority of anglers prefer to cast plugs or flies for peacock bass, the technique of trolling has produced many trophy fish for anglers who desire this method of fishing. The prime trolling areas are: large open-water lagoons, expansive flats in five to 10 feet of water, drop-offs next to island and sandbars and over humps and points.

When trolling, anglers may either fish a subsurface bait (the exact lure shall be determined by the depth of the water) or a surface lure. Peacock bass pioneer T.O. McClean of Odessa, Texas has turned the technique of trolling a topwater propeller bait into an art and has probably landed more 20 pound plus fish using this technique than any other person.

He will troll a large propeller bait, typically a 6-1/2 High Roller RipRoller from 25 to 40 yards behind the boat. T.O. will use the leverage of the moving boat to take up the slack as he forcefully rips the bait forward every few seconds.

Other productive propeller trolling baits include the Big Game Woodchopper and Temptress Detonator. Prime subsurface baits to troll include: Long-A Minnow, Red Fin, Yo Zuri sinking Crystal Minnow and rattling bait such as the 1 oz or large Rat-L-Traps.