As many of my friends and family know, I’m a huge fan of trying to test the boundaries of what species are possible to catch on a fly rod. Although the pursuit of the “populars” like tarpon, redfish, and striper will forever be engrained into my being, I have found that learning to embrace what else is out there has led to some of my best angling opportunities between the “bigger trips” that take place throughout the year. And when it comes to “I wonder what we can find that will eat a fly…”, South Florida honestly may be the mecca in the United States.

Fortunately enough for me, I find myself in South Florida often with a fully gassed up rental car. My favorite part of coming here is that you can literally find water for every .2 miles you drive it seems like…no matter if you are in a huge metropolis like Miami, or in one of the smaller towns off the Tamiami Trail. This year, I made it a point to “explore” away from my usual Peacock Bass spots, and boy did it pan out…not just for new species, but also finding some of my best peacocks ever.

In 2025, I was blessed to spend a plethora of days around the water in South Florida, but a few quick stories were highlights to me. With my smaller clousers, wooly buggers, and baitfish flies (nothing crazy) I found some great success on a warm day in March. One day while searching for Peacocks, I noticed literal oranges swimming in the water…not exaggerating. This excited me as I knew they were Midas Cichlid and I had never been able to catch one (very spooky usually). After a soft landing of a brown wooly bugger about 6 inches off of ones nose…I slow twitched and boom. After a nice fight, I landed my first Midas Cichlid. About 10 minutes later, I also caught my first ever Spotted Tilapia that was guarding a bed next to a rocky ledge in the water. This day was also accompanied by a handful of nice Peacocks that would only slam a fly stripped at blistering speeds. I also landed a good number of Florida Gar, and even saw some Snook in some predominantly freshwater areas…

A few months later (and once the weather was HOT), I wanted to spend some time going after a land based “monster” Peacock. After a half day of finding some pretty small Peacocks and Largemouth around Miami, I drove 30 minutes further north to an area that a few Reddit threads had indicated had some nice Peacocks. Upon arriving in the area, I knew there were some huge fish around…within the first couple of casts, I had fish blasting my fly right by the bank. After hooking a nice Peacock that got off right before the bank, I threw an EXTREMELY small yellow/green bead chain clouser right next to a rocky ledge, and had chaos break loose. I stripped the fly about 90% of the way in, went to pull the fly line for recast, and a HUGE Peacock surged out of the rocky ledge to inhale my fly. After a run to the backing in my 6 weight and holding on for dear life (as the fish was digging for structure), I landed the biggest Peacock of my life. No exaggeration or fish stories here when I say that this fish was 8+ pounds. Unreal moment. I also want to call out the fact that this fish was caught 2 hours before I had a flight scheduled to take off…moral of the story is “when in doubt, give it a go”.

One last story worth mentioning involves an early fall day exploring a new canal around the West Palm area. I had a few hours to mess around while waiting for some work colleagues to come in, and after some research found an area filled with fish. Initially hoping to find some Peacock, I was surprised to find a canal with a good number of Snakeheads. None of these fish were caught on this excursion (I will be back for vengeance…), but I fortunately ran into some other action. In one area of the canal by a bridge, I saw a ton of different exotics bedding and swimming around. I truthfully had no idea what they were…all I knew if they were beyond spooky and colorful. After several fly changes and lengthening leader, I was able to catch a handful of Mayan Cichlids, but more importantly landed two awesome Viejas Cichlid. These were objectively some of the craziest looking freshwater fish I had ever seen, and put a great bend into the 6 weight considering the overall size of the fish.

As mentioned earlier, I was really fortunate to get out and explore the FL canals this year. Really look forward to more exploring, and making sure that I make the most out of these “exotic” opportunities when they present themselves.

Tight lines!

Joe