Peacock Bass Fish Kills

[I.rar]

woooo!! feels good to be back in miami. should be up in miramar today and possibly do some fishing. i really hope its not as bad as everyone says...

[MuahMan]

I was out on Lox yesterday. I don't think there are any Peacocks in there but there were dead Mayans everywhere. Water teamps were between 52-54 degrees. Fished in near gale force winds for 4 hours before giving up. Didn't get a single bite. First time I've seen the fishing this bad since I moved to FL.  I thought the warmer temps of the past few days would have turned on the bite with pre-spawn feeding but I can't anything from the shore or the canal behind my house (C-16).

[Krzkev]

Went out on my local lake a couple days ago, and got totally skunked for like 3.5 hours.  I saw allot of stressed out myans and quite a few dead ones also.  I only saw a few dead peacocks, but I would think that the birds and other scavengers have had their way with all the floaters by now.  Only time will tell if we still have them up here, or if all of them got frozen.

[SoFlaBassAddict]

woooo!! feels good to be back in miami. should be up in miramar today and possibly do some fishing. i really hope its not as bad as everyone says...

Good luck with the weather....

[Shane Procell]

I was in the Big Cypress today to do a little scouting for bass. I was shocked to see literally thousands of dead talapia, oscar and cyclid floating south. It was a river of death as far as I could see. I fished for an hour and never saw a live non native fish. The fish kept poping up off the bottom like corks. It had to be a 100% kill off on the non natives. I can't prove this but it sure looked like it from my perspective. This had me pondering how the fish kill would affect the native fish population in Everglades in the near future? In the Big Cypress, the non natives had gotten out of control and it was common to have a catch ratio of 1 to 1, native to non native. I believe the bass should thrive mainly due to less demand of the existing food source. I know that the non natives were aggressive towards the bass fry. However the biggest bass I ever caught(picked it up by hand as it could not dive) had a 1 1/2# cyclid stuffed in it's mouth. So I figure the bigger bass were eating them as well. Still.... good ridence to all non native species.

[Dwight Hottle]

I'm in Islamorada this month & the cold front has caused a massive die-off of tarpon, snook & bonefish thruout the everglades & bay. Water temps down to 40 degrees before the warmup started. The state has closed the season on tarpon, bonefish & snook until April.

[etommy28]

went out today, there were losts of died cichlids, talapia, and a few snook. but no peacocks. they seam to have made it to the deap water in time.

[bocabasser]

fished a tourny today at holiday. i ran to the fingers and saw 100's of dead cichlids, tilapia, and peacocks. didn't get a single bite. ran to the miami canal and caught a limit in about 20 minutes. all small fish. finished 4th with 6 pounds. even in the miami canal there were 100's of dead cichlids and many dead peacocks.

[The Catcher]

I saw a few dead peacocks in my canal-lake combo. They were mainly small ones. Hopefully the big mommas swam to the deeper waters of the lake. They were all on the bottom, none floating thus far. Hope not too many were killed off. I can't wait to start fishing for them come Spring. BTW, I live on the dead end of the canal and the lake is about 2 tenth's of a mile away. I know they will start floating in time. I just hope the kill is a minor one.

[I.rar]

Good luck with the weather....

it cleared up later in the afternoon and i managed one decent largemouth on a spinnerbait. first time using one and shortly after i lost it to a mean snag. i tried slow cranking a shad rap , jig and a double hula grub with no luck. not sure what the water temp was but it was pretty cold. i asked the cousins husband and he said he hasnt seen any floaters in their lake so maybe they managed to hug the bottom and wernt too affected by the weather.

either way , its still nice to be outside fishing and still be able to feel your fingers after 30 minutes.  ;D

[regretlove]

Raining today, but we managed to catch 3 - 2 peacock and 1 small mouth.  A friend once told me that the 2 best times for fishing was when it wasn't raining..and when it was.

[SirSnookalot]

2 peacock and a small mouth.......hmmmmmmmmm

[George Welcome]

Raining today, but we managed to catch 3 - 2 peacock and 1 small mouth. A friend once told me that the 2 best times for fishing was when it wasn't raining..and when it was.

Before someone jumps all over you young lady, there are no smallmouth in Florida. Glad you had fun. Where were you fishing?

[SirSnookalot]

Just got back from a canal here in Delray, dead peacocks by the dozens, blue tilapia, some mayans and lots of dead plecos.  One thing I dead notice was the dead were large in each of the species, no juvenile fish.

[Flips]

We found tons of dying Snook at Okeechobee last week!  I didn't think they lived in there but there were hundreds in the shallows up to 20lbs...  What does a Pleco look like?  There was also tons of dying Tilapia too.

[South FLA]

Went fishing in my backyard canal/lake system to access the damage of the cold has done, NOT GOOD for non-natives!  Spotted tilipia by the dozen, about 20 floating juvenile peacocks under 2 pounds, a larger peacock in ths shallows that didn't float yet.  The largemouth bite was off only landed 3 fish in about 2 hours of fishing, where I usually land 10-30  >.  Also, I have a fish feeder that attracts many spotted and blue tilipia when it goes off at various times during the day, guess what only bluegill come up!  Its amazing what the sustained cold weather has done to the non-natives where I live (Palm Beach Gardens)

Anyway, this may be a blessing for native fish species such as largemouth and bream.  I am sure some survived, but the lack of competitors may let bucketmouth get big, but then again since many non-native forage fish died off such as spotted tilipia it may leave them with less forage, where's Mr. Lusk when you need him...would love his input on scenarios!

[George Welcome]

Nature does what F&G has been trying to do: get rid of some of the invasive species of fish that plague our waters. The cold snap is a major but temporary boon to Florida's native species of fish.

Periodically this reduction of invasive species of fish caused by cold occurs. However, as I said the fix is temporary only and the recovery by these invasive species will happen rather quickly.

[SoFl-native]

Fished Osbourne on Saturday. Saw some talapia, clown knife fish, ciclids floating....no peacocks.

Went to Lox yest. Talapia, and ciclids floating, no peacocks.

Caught 11 to 3 lbs at lox.

[SirSnookalot]

Until the peas come back I'm back into saltwater and been catching snook daily.

[XsnakeheadhunterX]

Went out on my canal on Sunday.

Bass are on again.

Water is really stained with a lot of floating debris. Lot's of floating Mayan Cichlids, Snakeheads seem to be allright...

I have not seen any dead fish yet, just stressed ones.

My bait of choice was a black/chart flake senko. Lost one really big bass . Bass are spawning already in my canal. Lot's of big mommas on the beds.

[The Catcher]

Since probably not all peacocks were killed during the cold snap, won't the survivors become resistant to future cold snaps, lessening the magnitude of fish kills should another one occur?

[The Catcher]

How’s all the peacock bass doing since the recent cold snap? I heard that some died in certain areas.

[JonB]

I'm wondering the same thing, have an upcoming trip planned and really hoping I can catch a few.

[Gera]

nice follow up

 

[Seaworthy81]

A lot died, still a lot left and the ones that made it are biting well. It’s been good at my normal spots.