Drove a long way yesterday to Black Creek in southern Miami-Dade looking for peacock bass. According to an article on the Florida Wildlife Commission website peacocks are supposed to be plentiful down there. The article also said access to the water is available via a boat ramp near a bridge that crosses the creek. Well, the article is out of date. You can't reach the boat ramp because the gravel road leading to it is blocked off with a steel gate and posts meant to prevent any four-wheeled vehicles from getting back there.
When I first saw that, I thought I'd made the long trip for nothing. But I walked around a bit and found a bank on the other side of the bridge where I might be able to slide my kayak off its trailer and down into the water. It was about four feet from the bank down to the water, but luckily there were a couple small grassy hummocks between the top of the bank and the water and I was able to slide my boat first onto those hummocks and then the rest of the way into the creek.
I'd already seen a large fish busting the surface when I first arrived, so I was anxious to begin fishing. I started out throwing flies toward the spot where I'd seen that fish, at the intersection of Black Creek and a smaller lateral canal. Then I moved on to fish the bridge pilings and beyond. It wasn't long before I saw a peacock cruising along a few feet under the surface. I threw a popper at it but it wasn't interested.
I continued east along Black Creek, fishing the bank to my left. There were lots of trees and overhanging brush along that side of the creek. However, there wasn't much spatterdock or water hyacinth floating on the surface, as you often see in canals in this area. That may be why I wasn't catching bluegill and small bass, as I often do in canals where there is lots of cover for them to hide in. There was a shelf of limestone extending out from the bank about 10-15 feet where the water was only a foot or two deep. As I pedaled along in my Hobie I was constantly scanning that shallow water for peacocks that might be soaking up in the sun in the shallow water. I saw a couple but what I saw a lot more of was grass carp, although it took me a bit of time to identify those 30 inch fish as such. I'd read that snook also inhabit this creek, since it's pretty close to Biscayne Bay. I was hoping those big fish were snook but they lacked the obvious lateral line that snook had. When one of these fish got close to me I saw the big bronze scales that marked it as a carp.
Here and there I'd come upon a bit of submerged weeds (eelgrass -not sure what to call it) growing in the shallows just before that steep dropoff to deep water. I tossed my fly so that it skimmed along the top of these weeds, then sank when it reached the drop-off. I allowed it to sink well out of sight, hoping some fish down there would grab it.
Eventually I reached the water control structure that's about a mile east of the bridge where I'd put in. I had to turn around and head back the other way. By then I'd caught three sunfish but no peacocks at all.
I fished back to the bridge and then west of the bridge for a quarter mile or so, passing the boat ramp that no one can use. By then I was getting a bit discouraged. I spotted a small pod of peacocks in the shallows around some sunken tree limbs. I got one of them to chase my fly and appear to take it in its mouth, then spit it out. I've heard that peacocks are quite aggressive when they strike. Not these guys. Probably they knew I was in the vicinity and were skeptical of anything that might have come from that guy in the bright yellow kayak.
Some folks dunk shiners for peacocks, I believe. Maybe live bait would have caught me a few yesterday. But I want to catch fish on fly tackle, which will work for peacocks...sometimes. Just not yesterday. I quit around four o'clock, feeling pretty disappointed that I'd gone to so much trouble to catch a few sunfish. Well, as I say in the video, You win some, you lose some.
Here's video I shot, if you want to get an idea of what Black Creek is like: http://youtu.be/aGoGbSnvJM4
Just don't get there expecting to put anything other than a canoe or kayak in the water there.
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