How do you spell peacock ... T O U G H ... we just completed a trip on the 21st and here is how it went. A cold front had blown in giving us a 65 degree temperature, 25+ mph winds an bluebird skies. The day started with a snook about 24" long breaking off, followed by another snook about 18" long throwing the hook, then a jack decide to take the bait. Finally a 2 1/2 pound peacock hammers the lure. The going was slow, 2 more peacocks where taken on trolled shiners. We moved into a cut and found a couple of schools of peacocks and a few bedding fish. The clients where able to catch 6 fish off of the beds, and 2 came on jerk baits. For the most part the fish where hard to catch you could throw a shiner into the bed and the fish would just come up to the bait and put their nose on it without taking the bait. The schooling fish kept moving up and down making it hard to key on them. The clients asked to move to another area even though the fish where beginning to hit on topwater. As we moved out of the area another guide quickly moved into the area. We began to run and gun throughout the area trying to find additional fish, we came across a big peacock of about 7 pounds but as soon as we got close down into deep water he went. He just laughed at everything that was thrown his way. Next we came up on a bedding pair of largemouths, just for fun the clients caught and released the buck, then began working on the female, on the first cast she took the bait and gave a nice fight, a nice 4 1/4 pound largemouth. At this point the clients where ready to call it a day. Final totals for the day a jack, 11 peacocks averaging 2 1/2 pounds, and 2 largemouths. El Nino has been wreaking havoc with the fishing, the fish just don't know what is going on, we w ill see 4 or 5 days of nice weather then a front will move in for 3 or 4 days. The fish are trying to spawn but the weather knocks them off of the beds as quick as they move up. Hopefully the weather will begin to stablize and with stable weather the fishing will pickup.

Want a difference a little nice weather can make ... we had a trip on the 25th, we got on the water a 8 am, weather conditions mid to upper 70's, slight cloud cover, the only down side was the wind as blowing 20 - 25 mph, but in the canals it was just a nice breeze to help keep the heat down. The day started with a 3 pound largemouth taking the shiner, it was a nice fight but was not the type of bass we wanted to catch. We took this client back to the areas that we had fished on the 21st, the difference was now the fish had moved up and had stayed on the beds. For the next 4 hours we found and caught fish between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 pounds, we where mainly sight fishing and would only take one of the pair off of the bed. After we caught a peacock, we would photograph, measure and release the fish, and then we would move on, looking for another pair of fish to work on. At 1 pm the size of the fish picked up, we caught peacocks from 3 1/2 to 5 pounds. We ended up catching 5 peacocks over 5 lbs with the largest tipping the scale at 5 lbs 13 oz, we also had two fish over 7 pounds break off. When it was all said and done we had boated over 35 fish that had a an average weight of 4 1/2 pounds. Better than 80% of the peacocks that the client caught where "Big Fish" citation fish. We could have easily have doubled the number of peacock that we caught, if we would have taken both fish off of the bed, but we wanted to leave one fish to protect the bed against the smaller egg predators. All fish where released to fight another day. Thats all for now stay tune for additional updates as they become available.

These reports are provided by Sam's Peacock Bass Guide Service.

Sam's Peacock Bass Guide Service is no longer in business but there are some nice pictures still on his old site.