# Peacock Bass Flies



## SemperFiSH (Jun 19, 2013)

Taking my two boys to south Florida in a few weeks and was looking for some input on the best/proven flies for peacock bass.  I've read the book and articles.  I would appreciate some recent experience for the one or two best patterns I can tie for the trip. They are 13 and 15 and I want them to have success.  Thanks for the help!


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

Here's a pattern that was a regular order from shops I used to tie for down here.... Mostly they'd want them in size 4 but occasionally up to a #1.... If peacocks drove cars they'd want a bright pink and fl. green low rider with loud mufflers.... This particular Clouser style fly was done two ways with a natural and a synthetic wing.....


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## billhempel (Oct 9, 2008)

Spoken from the master tier.


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## SemperFiSH (Jun 19, 2013)

Bob, Thank you, especially for the multiple pics. I had a guy from down that way say something similar. I'll start tying tonight!


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

Keep in mind that these guys don't behave at all like largemouths.... no slow moving worms get bit at all. They're also most active right in the middle of the day and can be pretty aggressive since they actively defend their nests and their small fry. Along with clousers, small poppers worked like you'd fish jack crevalle, and any minnow pattern that's not too large will work as well.


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## SemperFiSH (Jun 19, 2013)

Yea, the boys are excited they don't have to get up early to do this ;D


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## paint it black (Nov 3, 2007)

I fish for peacock bass in a slightly unconventional manner I guess you'd say. I originally started off using Capt. Bob's flies that I used to buy at the local Fly Shop. And they did catch me some fish, but through the years, I have figured out a few things differently. Yeah, you may catch some stripping fast, as most people would recommend. But I guarantee you will catch many more if you don't do that. The only time that actually works out well, is if you find them up in a school cruising a bank actively looking to destroy any minnow in sight. 

More frequently, you will find peacock bass hanging around structure, off ledges, in a culvert, under some rocks, or out on a shallow bed guarding their nest. I have caught some of my biggest peas slowly dragging a fly on the bottom, with slow long strips. 

Personally, I like small, bright and heavy flies with large hook. Peacock bass love to short strike, or blow on the fly, so I use a size 2 Gama B10s hook. Now, I have had many of those hooks straightened by large peacock bass. They will do so more than a snook or a tarpon would damage that hook, for whatever reason. I use as big of lead eyes or psuedo eyes that my 5wt or 6wt can handle. Originally, I used EP fibers, as Capt. Bob uses. It was very effective, but after catching several peacocks on the fly, the fibers would end up knotting themselves and give the fly a weird action. So I switched over to marabou. Essentially, I was tying a heavy clouser, made with marabou for a quick darting action. Peacock bass do not like the rapid fast speed most people say. Peacock bass like the rapid darting action. There's a little game I play with peacock bass. There's plenty of times I take people to fish for peacocks and they cast in front of fish and wont get an eat, I make one cast and immediate destruction.  It's almost as if you want to tease the fish. You bring that fly near it, and when it comes up to the fly, give it a quick twitch, the fish will light up, give the fly a pause and right when you think he's going to eat it, twitch it again. At the very moment that you think it's going into his mouth, you have to give it that rapid twitch. Then, it will inhale your fly so hard that you need to strip set and hold on.  I say twitch because it's the rapid darting and quick stopping motion that triggers them to feed aggressively. otherwise, you'l l have them nose your fly, nibble on the end of it but not fully mouth it, etc.


Again, if the fish are worked up in a school actively cruising looking for food, all bets are off. Put a fly anywhere in the water and strip. 

My favorite color combinations are as follows, (very similar to what Capt. Bob Lemay stated). Chartreuse and magenta, with chartreuse thread and big nickel eyes. Chartreuse and purple with big nickel eyes, chartreuse and orange, draw some black bars on it and use some crystal flash in chartreuse, lime green and bright yellow, with orange thread (my most effective color scheme over the years).

All pink works well, and I'v been catching quite a few on all black, and black and purple lately. When it's rained a bit and the water is a bit darker, I throw dark colors. 

What I have been doing lately is not using clousers. I have been tying a simple fly, marabou tail, two strands of flash. then I palmer some Tarantula, and then Psuedo Eyes to seal the deal. I tie it in the same color combinations I mentioned, and it works great. I've also been getting the freshie poons to crush that fly.

Theses are a few pics from the past few weeks. 


































Here's the fly I've been throwing lately, different color combinations as I stated earlier.


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## SemperFiSH (Jun 19, 2013)

PIB, thanks for the help. Are you using .5" or 1" tarantula?


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## paint it black (Nov 3, 2007)

> PIB, thanks for the help. Are you using .5" or 1" tarantula?



1" tarantula.


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

Very cool.... always something new coming along, and as usual the guys who do the most fishing are well ahead of what shops know about.... Today I need to come up with something a bit more effective for some very particular docklight snook that we'll be working over tonight... Hope I can fill the need, but will know one way or the other tomorrow morning just after I drop off my anglers and head back to the ramp around 2Am...


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## SemperFiSH (Jun 19, 2013)

Gentlemen,  I've been working up a box for the trip.  The boys are getting excited (me too). Thanks again for the help!


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## Backwater (Dec 14, 2014)

Awesome reply Eric (paint it black)!  Great seeing you and the boys at iCast!

I'll have to try that fly in those deeper, quarry rock type ponds and deep canals.

I like that color pattern that Capt Lemay has on his clousers for Dalberg divers I like to throw around spillways, small bridges with shallow bottoms and those old little residential canals that you really need to fish with a gheenoe/ canoe/ yak or something small like that (where you are throwing along the weeds next to the banks of the canals).  I also like to throw in vertical lines to with a gold/olive marker (gold markers make olive lines FYI)  make them look like mud minnows or baby peacocks.

So the object is to have a fly that pushes water and dives down making bubbles without that "pop" of a popper.  I've found they work better than poppers for me and keeps the fish from turning off of them like they do with a popper sometimes.  So I'll vary actions until I see what they'll hit.  Normally I like slower short strips that cause them to twich side to side with pauses in between strips (or like Eric says "twitches").  BTW, I don't know exactly how Eric is twitching, but I don't twitch with the rod tip, but only with a short snapping strip (like inches).  Also I like the B10s for floating flies and a #2 or a #1 is a good size for that fly, depending on what size you tie.  I like them about 3" for the smaller one and 4" for the bigger ones.  

In the spillways, I like to throw it right up to the water pouring in the spillway and then stripping it a little faster with harder strips.  You want to be down current and throw it upcurrent to the spillway and strip it with the current.  quartering it cross current is ok, but I don't get strikes stripping it back up current.

Remember the B10s's gap is about the same size as the next size or 2 up hook.  So don't think it'll be too small until you see it.

I usually tie in chinese strung hackles for the tail (plain, not grizzly, then I bar them with wide spaces), maybe 2 strands of pearl crystal flash and I stack the colors for the head.  So there's 2 ways to trim the collar for this.  You can trim it where the collar stands up and put on a lil wax on the collar or waterproof soft clear glue, (which causes the fly to push a lot of water) or I'll trim up a fat sloping bushy collar with a little wax on it (almost a cone shape with a flat bottom and collar that looks like the big end of a set of ear plugs.  That keeps it bulky and pushing water without making a lot of bubbles or splashing water (which can sometimes turn them off).  If I get some time, I'll take post some pics.

I like Eric's example of how to get them to light up and pounce on the fly.  I also do that and do that when I'm dock light fishing for snook, only faster and take it away from them when they are about to nudge it short strike or eyeball it.  It's causes them to pounce!  But you can't see them spillway fishing so I don't do that, just make it an erratic strip and pause pattern, only slightly faster than the water is flowing (which can seem fast).

BTW, I had the privilege to talk to Larry Dalberg himself on Thursday for about 20mins, talking about his fly, lure making and some of the awesome trips he's going to do and also countries he'll never go back to.  He's an amazing guy and one of my biggest heros in the fishing/ fly fishing world. He's the "Master!"


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## pjordan (Jun 12, 2015)

I have been using this for bass and redfish/specks down here. I would give it a go. Just tie to the size you like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJT-nIq9RZU


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## SemperFiSH (Jun 19, 2013)

Thanks so much for the help! Day 1...4 Peacocks, 2 Mayan Cichlid, 1 Gar, 1 Bass. most of all great memories with my boys!


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