By: Dan Carns
Cape Coral is home to an expanding population of peacock bass. I recently had the pleasure of joining Johnny Sullivan as he gave me a crash course in how to target them. Johnny has been posting his peacock bass pics, affectionately known as Pea’s, on his Facebook feed for quite a while. I mistakenly thought he was fishing in a very confined area of the Cape, but then I realized his launch points where all over Cape Coral as are these fish!
I’ve been so focused on fishing saltwater that I didn’t realize that the Cape has public freshwater launches all over the city. We met on a pleasant Sunday morning, and dropped our kayaks into one of these launches. This canal looks like every other canal system here, surrounded by residential homes and has a super healthy population of lily pads and other aquatic plant life. Johnny had mentioned that these Pea’s were taking top water plugs and that I should have a Chug Bug to start. As we settled into our kayaks at daybreak, he said we were headed to his “spot” but mentioned that the Pea’s could be anywhere. He had his first one on in less than a minute, meanwhile, I am an old largemouth bass nut and got one on my second cast. The thought cr ossed my mind that catching largemouth bass all morning couldn’t make me happier but we were here to target Pea’s. As we continued on down the canal Johnny was setting the example for me to follow and I didn’t quite have the right cadence down, so he’s catching Pea’s and I’m catching largemouths until all of a sudden, I got my first Pea hit and overreacted, missing the strike. Johnny told me to wait for the second strike as I reel in and sure enough the second hit comes and again I miss it. I’m still in largemouth strike mode but after multiple strikes and Johnny’s coaching I got my first Pea and she’s a beauty!
We continued on down the canal, Johnny asks me to come up ahead of him because his favorite corner, surrounded by submerged rocks, is up ahead. I was using a fairly large chug bug in silver/blue without a tail feather while Johnny is using a saltwater series Chug bug in metallic silver mullet color with a tail feather and he’s getting blown up. I attribute my lack of hits more to my inexperience and less to the plug until I switched lures. I tied on an old smallmouth bass top water plug in silver and black with big yellow eyes and a tail feather. The cadence for these plugs is way faster than you might think for these fish but Johnny assures me its right and suddenly I’m getting multiple strikes and landing both Pea’s and largemouth. Thanks to Johnny’s patient guidance and his willingness to share, I’m now onto a whole new fishery and not enough time!
It’s A Wild World-Get Out There!
@Paddlinandfishin
Dan Carns