Peacock Bass in South Florida, with Capt. Drew Rodriguez
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi, welcome to "The Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And this week my guest is Capt. Drew Rodriguez. And Capt. Drew has an interesting business because he is a fly fishing guide in South Florida. But unlike nearly every fly fishing guide in [00:00:30] South Florida we know of, he's a freshwater guide and he specializes in largemouth and peacock bass and some of the exotics that you can find in the waters around South Florida. And we're mainly gonna talk about peacock bass during the summer because that's what he does most. That's what's best during the summer down there. He says that fishing for largemouths is mainly a night affair this time of year because the water's so warm, but the peacocks love it. And he can catch 'em [00:01:00] year round there and catches a lot of 'em. So he's a great storyteller. I think you'll enjoy it. And if you are in the Miami area, either you live there or you're there on business or pleasure, you may wanna listen to this and learn how to chase peacock bass.
Before we do the Fly Box, a of couple things. One is summer's here and summer means showers, afternoon showers in a lot of places, particularly thunderstorms [00:01:30] and you need a rain jacket. And my favorite summer rain jacket is the Orvis Ultralight Wading Jacket. It packs down quite small. It's totally waterproof. I've worn it for weeks at a time and stayed dry. But it packs down, it'll go into your sling bag, or your backpack, or whatever, and takes up very little space, and yet you can pull it out whenever you need it. So it's a great...I feel that it's [00:02:00] one of the best rain jackets I've ever worn. And I think it's worth a look for your summer fishing.
Another announcement. I still have a couple of slots open for my Three Rivers Ranch trip in Idaho, September 28th to October 5th. It's a great trip. I love Three Rivers Ranch, I love the fishing there and the guides. One of my favorite places in the world and still have a couple spaces open. So if you want to fish with me and hang out with me for a week [00:02:30] or so, contact Orvis Travel. The trip is listed on the Orvis website under Idaho and hope you can join me. I love meeting podcasts listeners in person.
And now the Fly Box. The Fly Box is where you ask me questions or you give me tips you want to share with other listeners and I sometimes read 'em on the air. I read 'em all. I don't read 'em all in the air. If you [00:03:00] ask me for a list of flies on your trip to Scandinavia or you ask me for recommendations for fishing in the Pacific Northwest, sorry, I don't do that, but I do answer technique questions and knot questions and tackle questions and things like that. So anyway, if you have a question for me that doesn't fall into where to go or what flies to take, you can reach me at
And this week, my first email is from Ewen from Wisconsin. "I was wondering about the Orvis Sling Packs. The two I'm looking at are the standard and guide versions. I don't carry the whole kitchen sink when it comes to flies and gear, so I was thinking about purchasing the standard because I also wanna be able to carry a jacket and my lunch, which I'm not sure would [00:04:00] fit in the standard size. Any thoughts?" Yeah, Ewen, you're probably not gonna be able to fit fly boxes and a few other pieces of gear, and your lunch, and your rain gear in the standard sling bag. That's more for carrying, you know, a bunch of fly boxes, and a bunch of tools, and leader wallet, and tippet and things like that. So I think you're gonna have to go with [00:04:30] the guide version. That's the one I use. And I do recommend the waterproof version because I'm short and I don't like getting my flies wet.
Here's an email from Wiley. "I'm a collegiate club president at Lees-McRae College, North Carolina and we are part of the TU 5 Rivers Program, which is developed to bring together conservation-minded fly fishers who are attending college. The program is fast-growing and has been a tremendous [00:05:00] amount of help to collegiate clubs. Orvis is one of our sponsors through the program and have been a tremendous amount of help to get more students into the sport." And so Wiley wants to remind people that if you are a member of a college fly fishing club, or you're an advisor to a college fly fishing club, or you know of one, you should contact Trout Unlimited through their website about the 5 Rivers Program because [00:05:30] it is a terrific program and it's done a lot of wonderful work with college students, getting them involved in cold water conservation. So if you are a member of a collegiate club, contact Trout Unlimited and see if you can get involved with that program.
Joe: Hi, Tom. This is Joe from Illinois and Montana from big sky to big corruption. I'm a long-time listener and first-time caller. Your podcasts have kept [00:06:00] me educated and entertained for years. Thank you. I have two questions. When fishing in the Madison River in Montana, I often land a few whitefish. If I'm catching more whitefish than trout or all whitefish, should I move to another portion of the river or are the trout in a different depth? Second question is, what's the best way to fish nymphs without an indicator? Some days I just get tired of staring at a bobber. Tight lines.
Tom: Well, Joe, often [00:06:30] you'll find whitefish and trout in roughly the same place feeding in the same area. So you may have to sort through the whitefish. I mean, whitefish are fun on their own. They fight well and they take a fly pretty well. But if you wanna try to avoid whitefish, the only thing I can say is, I tend to find them in a little bit deeper water than trout. So you're catching a bunch of whitefish, maybe go up above them [00:07:00] where the water is a little faster and shallower. That's typically where I find the trout as opposed to kind of down in the deeper gut of the pool. So you can try that. But it's hard to keep them off. They're pretty eager feeders, so you may just have to deal with them. The one thing you might wanna try is to fish a big dry fly instead of a nymph and that will keep most of the white fish off your line. [00:07:30]
Regarding the best way to fish nymphs without an indicator, well, my go-to way is a dry dropper, as I've said many times here where you're fishing a dry fly and a nymph at the same time. But of course there's Euro nymphing, which fishes nymphs on a tight line without an indicator. And then, you know, there's the old naked nymphing technique, which is the way I learned to fish nymphs, which [00:08:00] is fishing nearly straight upstream on a floating line and just watching the tip of your floating line or your leader, if you can see it on the water, looking for little pauses in the line. And you probably miss more strikes doing it that way, but it is a nice clean method. And it particular works well in fast water. Naked nipping works well, you know, with a floating line, longer leader, weighted flies, and just fishing nearly straight upstream in faster [00:08:30] water. The fish'll usually hit the nymph hard enough to make the line, dart forward. And you just set the hook whenever your line tightens or darts forward.
All right. Let's do another email. This one's from Kyle. "First tip, use your note section in your phone to record tips or questions to be later asked on the podcast. I often think of question and tips while fishing alone, only to forget them [00:09:00] later. Second tip revolves around keeping gear rust-free. I have a close relative who works in a pharmacy, and about once a year, I had them collect the desiccant packs that come in every pill bottle. This ends up being about 500 packets. I put one of these in every compartment of all my tackle and fly boxes, as well as in my gun cases and toolboxes, and I haven't had a rusty hook in years. Next time you pick up your arthritis pain, constipation, diarrhea, water, blood pressure, or heart pills, [00:09:30] ask your pharmacist if he can spare some of those packets. Just ask that they don't give you any from narcotics or hormone bottles. We don't need our trout jacked up on steroids and painkillers. They fight well enough now.
My question or concern revolves around taking my 7-year-old daughter fishing. I have purchased her some kid waders, non-Orvis brand nylon waders, I actually have the matching adult version, and she absolutely loves wading in them. [00:10:00] She loves to flip rocks to look for crayfish, bugs, and minnows. I normally let her carry the net she can net fish or I put a sane screen over the net and let her catch drifting bugs. This works awesome for both of us. She normally wades directly in front of me or right behind me and hangs onto my sling pack. This keeps her out of the way of the fly, but close enough to net fish. We don't ever go in the water more than about 12 to 16 inches deep for safety. However, I'm still wondering [00:10:30] how we can be safer. She has a tightly-synced wader belt and drawstring at the top, but I'm wondering if a tether between us might be helpful. And obviously a PFD would probably be a good idea too. Tom, have you ever tethered yourself to your child or made them use a PFD while wading? Do you ever use a PFD while wade-fishing or from your SUP or kayak canoe drift boat?"
Well, Kyle, that's a good idea on the [00:11:00] desiccant packs. And you can also get those in a lot of food products. So I save 'em too and put 'em in fly boxes, and they do work quite well. Regarding tethering your daughter, I don't think it's a good idea. You know, if you fall in, you're gonna be dragging your daughter in with you. And I just think that the tether, it sounds scary to me. I would not do that. I'd put a PFD on your daughter [00:11:30] and let her hang onto you and if she falls in she's not gonna be that deep and you can run and grab her. Maybe carry a throw rope with you just in case. But I would not tether your daughter to you. Of course, swimming lessons, goes without saying, make sure that if she doesn't know how to swim, she takes swimming lessons.
I don't wear a PFD while I am [00:12:00] fishing. I do sink my wader belt very tightly, and I do use the drawstrings at the top. And, you know, based on Ralph Cutter's advice, bunch of podcasts ago, if the water were really, really fast and dangerous, I might put a second wader belt around the top of my waders, just under my armpits. I think that's a great idea. But I think a PFD is what you wanna do for your [00:12:30] daughter. I don't wear one when I'm stream-fishing. I do wear one occasionally in my kayak or canoe if I'm in really rough water or current, I will wear a PFD.
How about another email? This one's from AJ. "After listening to the podcast on blue dotting, it got me to thinking about the type of fishing I normally do. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, about 10 minutes from the Ohio River. The Ohio River [00:13:00] watershed in the greater Cincinnati area is made up of the Whitewater River, the Great Miami River, and the Little Miami River. These three rivers have their own watersheds. This gives me a lot of options for fishing small creeks. I do what I refer to as urban warm water blue lining. I will search for and find places where I can fish for panfish, bass, carp, crappie, and occasionally catfish in small creeks.
I wanna say to your listeners that you don't have to limit yourself to ponds. [00:13:30] I work outside in this time of year getting mid-thigh deep into small creek and wet wading while fly fishing after work is a great way to cool down. Sometimes access points to these creeks can be hard to find. Take advantage of the people who conventional fish. They can help you find access to all kinds of water. Also, find out what they're using to catch fish. There's more likely a fly that will match their conventional bait. Thank you for being such a wonderful ambassador to our sport. P.S. [00:14:00] I volunteer with the Mayfly Project in Cincinnati. I would like to say thank you to the Orvis Store in Kenwood, Cincinnati for helping us with a fundraiser this spring." Well, thank you AJ. And that's a good tip. And yes, absolutely, you can do urban blue lining as well as blue spotting or blue dotting.
Here's an email from David. "In trying to increase my fly fishing credentials, ha [00:14:30] ha, I recently took a fall while wading. Much of my vest got wet. I've done my best to dry everything to avoid rust, and mold, and whatever other things might happen. My question is whether there are any specific steps one should take or tips for how to dry the gear out effectively. Things like, is it good enough to open up my fly boxes for a day or two on my desk, or do I need to put the open boxes in the sun for a while, or do I need to take all the flies out of their foam slits to dry everything and [00:15:00] then reload the box? That's one example. But maybe there are other strategies, tips, or tricks of what to do when my gear gets wet."
So, David, I hear you. My worst fear in falling in a river isn't really drowning or ruining my phone or camera, but it's getting my fly boxes wet. If your fly boxes get wet, particularly if you use those foam strips, [00:15:30] you are never gonna get all that water out between the hook and the foam strips. It's gonna stay in there and those things are gonna rust and they're going to discolor your flies, ruin some of your other flies, and also, rusty hooks lose a lot of their strength. So it's a problem. And the only thing I can tell you, really, is to take all the flies out, put 'em on a piece of paper towel [00:16:00] and let 'em dry. Put 'em in the sun if it's not windy, or maybe inside in the sun where the wind isn't gonna blow 'em away.
But if you're using those foam strips, you know, if you wanna save all those flies, you really gotta take 'em all out and dry 'em off. This is why I wear a waterproof sling bag so I don't get my fly boxes wet even if I fall in. And if you don't have a waterproof sling bag or something else, you know, you can put your fly boxes in a Ziploc bag. It's a [00:16:30] pain to get out your fly boxes. You have to open up the Ziploc bag every time, but there really is no other option. A wet fly box is really a disaster and a real pain in the butt. There's not much else in your vest or in your sling bag or whatever you carry that the water will hurt. You know, you probably shouldn't keep a paper license [00:17:00] or your wallet in there. But other than that, all the stuff that you carry, your tippet material, your fly floats, your leaders, and things like that, they can get wet. The one thing the paper leader cards can get all bugged up and then you can't tell what leader you have in the package because they get all tough to read once they get wet. But other than that, yeah, there's not much you need to worry about except your flies. [00:17:30]
Thomas: Hi, Tom. I have a question. I was watching a fly fishing video on YouTube the other day, and a guy mentioned something that I have never heard before. And it might just be such common knowledge that it's never said to people, or maybe he didn't know what he was talking about. But anyways, he was on a lake and there was just enough wind to get kinda a little [00:18:00] ripples in the water and so he said this would make it better for dry fly fishing because the surface tension kinda was broken. And I was wondering if that's true and why? I was very confused by it because I normally think of dry fly fishing when the water is nice and calm. Thanks for all you do, and I hope I'll be hearing from you." [00:18:30]
Tom: Yeah, Thomas, you would think that dry fly fishing would be better on lakes when it's calm and I'm sure that sometimes it is, makes it easier to cast, makes it easier to see the rises. But most of the experienced stillwater anglers that I know prefer some ruffle on the water. In fact, in Chile, they fish big dry flies for dragonfly and beetle imitation on their lakes and they [00:19:00] really want some wind. They want the wind to...Of course, the wind kicks up every day there anyways, but they really want some wind on the water. It blows food into the water, it blows food across the lake, and forms wind streaks or foam lines where the fish get concentrated. So I'm afraid that fishing in the wind with a dry fly is probably better in most cases than on a calm day.
Here's an email from Len. [00:19:30] "What would be your recommendation for a basic surf fishing outfit for someone who would fish probably two times a year on the East Coast, Florida, Caribbean, or Central America?" So, Len, I'm not sure if you're talking specifically about surf fishing or just shallow water fishing. In general, if you're fishing kind of calm flats at right off shore, so [00:20:00] say bonefishing or redfishing or something like that, generally, a 9 foot, 8-weight is the recommended rod. However, if you're truly gonna be surf fishing, by that I mean fishing in waves, breaking waves, you probably wanna have your outfit because you're probably gonna have more wind and you're gonna have bigger flies. So in that case, if you're truly surf fishing, I would say you want either a 9-weight or a 10-weight outfit. [00:20:30] So either an 8-weight or a 9-weight, depending on how much wind and wave you're gonna have.
Here's an email from David. "On the March 24th episode with Jason Randall, there was a Fly Box question looking for good books about the history of trout in North America before Europeans arrived. I really love "Brook Trout" by Nick Karas. It covers the natural history of brook trout, Includes some great stories, and talks about the impact of development on this native fish. At about 500 [00:21:00] pages, it is long, but I wish it was longer. A question about line management when fishing. This week I was fishing one of my favorite driftless small streams and was reminded that I need better line management skills. Standing at a very shallow riffle at the foot of a pool I was able to cast a rising fish upstream. As I stripped line in the ground it eventually got pulled by the water between rocks or around the one stick in the channel. Even if I run through the slack before my next cast it sometimes [00:21:30] get caught or has tension, which prevents me from shooting line. How do you manage your fly line in situations like this?"
Well, thank you, David, for that tip on Nick Karas's book on brook trout. That is a great book and I highly recommend it. Regarding line management, the thing you can do in that situation, and I do this quite often and people look at me like they've never seen it before. I'm not [00:22:00] sure why. But what I do is I strip in line, maybe in 12 to 13, 14-inch poles, and then I hold it in my line hand and I make another coil and I hold that...Sorry, in my rod hand. So I'm putting coils back on my rod hand and holding those coils above the water. I do that in boats a lot so I don't get hung up on cleats [00:22:30] or trolling motors or things like that. And it usually shoots pretty well if you take care to put each coil in front of the other one closer to the tips of your hand, usually shoots pretty well. And I don't know why more people don't do that these days. Most of us just strip line on the ground. Of course, you could use a stripping basket too, but that's kind of a pain in small streams. I don't think you wanna be walking around with a stripping basket. But just try practicing that at home by [00:23:00] stripping in some line and then holding the coils on your rod hand, that may get you out of trouble most of the time.
Here's an email from Alex from Western Pennsylvania. "I recently started fly fishing a few years ago. I consider myself a novice and still trying to learn as much as I can. A few years ago, my friend gifted me an old Fenwick Fiberglass Rod and 6-weight. It sat on the shelf for years because it looked [00:23:30] as if it was an old inferior rod and I was told it would probably break by a few friends. It wasn't until my child started fishing with me that I strung the fly rod up for him and began casting it. I've grown to really love the fiberglass rod and I would say it's my favorite rod as of now. I recently landed a 25-inch rainbow with it. My personal best. My question is, after looking for more glass rods to add to my arsenal, I found that most glass rods seems [00:24:00] smaller in length than graphite. Why is this? Is it to reduce weight or something similar? Like I said, I enjoy the feel of a glass rod, but also know the benefits of a longer rod, especially when trying to fish across different current lanes. Do you have any insight on this? As always, I truly enjoy your podcast. It's become an invaluable resource of knowledge and experiences while trying to learn and perfect techniques."
So Alex, first of all, an old fiberglass rod, unless it's been damaged, is probably [00:24:30] not gonna break. Fiberglass rods are almost indestructible. If any of you have an old fiberglass rod, I wouldn't worry about fishing it. It's not gonna break. They last forever. They might slow down just a bit if they've been heavily fished for decades, but it's not gonna change that much. But to address your question, Alex, you got it right. Fiberglass is [00:25:00] a heavier material than graphite. And when you try to make a longer fiberglass rod, it just gets to be a really heavy rod. And since they don't respond as quickly as a graphite rod, they don't come back to rest as quickly as a graphite rod, they'll wobble a little bit more on the tip after a cast. The longer the rod, the more that wobble's gonna happen. So they're just kinda ungainly in the longer lengths. That's why you're gonna [00:25:30] see most of them in a shorter length.
Roger: Hello, Tom. This is Roger Bird, and today I am coming to you from the shores of the Norfolk River in northern Arkansas. And I would like to say thank you. A number of years ago you did a podcast with River Run Outfitters out of Taneycomo up in Missouri, and they talked about a Ruby Red Midge. And let me tell you something, that midge [00:26:00] has been hot for me this week. I caught beautiful rainbow trout over 14 inches, had to turn 'em loose. It was a wonderful time. Once again, I wanna thank you for doing that podcast, I wanna thank you for putting me on that midge, and thank you for all you do.
Tom: Well, Roger, thank you so much. I'm glad that you enjoyed that old podcast and that you discovered that [00:26:30] really cool fly. And actually, I didn't know that pattern and I had to look it up. So since you're giving a glowing review of that fly, I will read the pattern description here for others that wanna tie it. The hook is a size 18 to 20 standard nymph hook. There's a 2-millimeter gold tungsten bead at the head. The body is red holographic tinsel, [00:27:00] and the rib is small red wire, and the thread is red. So pretty simple fly. And I'm gonna try some out myself. Sounds like a killer pattern.
All right. That is the podcast or that is the Fly Box for this week. Let's go on to the interview with Capt. Drew. So my guest today is Capt. Drew Rodriguez. And Capt. Drew is a guide in South [00:27:30] Florida, but unlike most guides in South Florida, you specialize in freshwater, right?
Capt. Rodriguez: Yes, sir.
Tom: And that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. So, you know, originally, I wanted to do a largemouth bass podcast...summer fishing for largemouth bass and you told me that it was really too hot here to fish for 'em during the [00:28:00] day, so we mainly fish for 'em at night. And we can talk about that a little bit. But you said, "What I do now is fish for peacock bass and other species," right? And I thought, "Oh, that would be a cool podcast." So let's talk about summer fishing for peacock bass in South Florida. Tell me what it's like.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, so they're a fish that's originally from South America. And first of all, Tom, thanks for having me today. This is awesome.
Tom: Oh, my pleasure. [00:28:30]
Capt. Rodriguez: They are a fish that's from South America, so they typically love the heat. Yesterday, just so you have an idea, we were doing a guide trip and it was so hot out there and anytime the sun was out, we didn't wanna be there. But that's when the bite was the best. Like, literally, the peacocks were biting nonstop and top water, and they were just going crazy when the sun was out [00:29:00] and when it was miserable. And in the beginning you don't really notice that you're getting so hot. And then anytime it was cloud cover that you're like, "Wow, this feels good. I could be here all day."
I mean, we'd catch one here, one there, but when it was comfortable for us, they would not bite. And when it was miserable and the hotter it got and the longer the day went on...And I wanna say that it's not always like [00:29:30] that though. You know, people ask, "Oh, when's the best time?" And it's not always like that. I just feel like last year and the year before especially, we had an extremely cold winter. And I think that anytime we have a really cold winter, the summer after that, they just really go crazy, if that makes any sense.
Tom: Sure.
Capt. Rodriguez: It's just so hard to answer fishing questions because everything's always changing, you know? [00:30:00]
Tom: That's true, you know. I'm always kinda waffling and saying, well, sometimes or usually, but that's fishing, right? You can't give anybody...
Capt. Rodriguez: I knew if anybody would understand that it'd be you because I watch your stuff all the time and your followers ask questions and then you're like, "Well," and the way that you answer those questions is exactly how I have to answer all my questions on the phone [00:30:30] and in the boat, and it's insane.
Tom: Well, let's talk about peacock bass in general. We'll talk about, you know, where you find them, how big do they get? Just so you know, I've fished for peacocks a couple times down in Florida, only caught a couple little ones, but it was cool, and they're beautiful fish and they fight hard. So tell me about, you know, what [00:31:00] fishing for peacocks with a professional is like.
Capt. Rodriguez: We should probably talk about how they got here in the first place.
Tom: Okay. Sure. Yeah.
Capt. Rodriguez: They were introduced in 1984 by the state to get rid of the other invasive species that we have and as well as to have them as a game fish because they're just such a fun, hard fighting fish. But down here, like, let's say in Vermont, somebody has [00:31:30] tiger oscars in their fish tank, in their aquarium, they have African jewel cichlids, all these aggressive fish that they basically love to have them in there because if you throw a group of feeder minnows or feeder shrimp in there, you just watch them, whoa, just eat 'em, and so they'd love to have that. But in Vermont, if they release 'em into the wild, they're just gonna [00:32:00] either die right away or die when winter comes.
And here with our subtropical climate, they're just going to strive, you know? So we have...you look into the water down here and there's all type of fish that just don't belong. It's kind of the same deal as the iguanas, same deal as the pythons that you see in the Everglades. So they introduced peacock bass in '84 to eat the [00:32:30] other invasive species. And that's why we have them here to begin with. And then they introduced them first into the city canals because they didn't wanna, like, mess up the ecosystem of the Everglades. And then they eventually just branched out everywhere. They just do really good with our climate, you know?
Tom: Are they in the Everglades as well? I've never caught a peacock in the Everglades, but are [00:33:00] they there?
Capt. Rodriguez: So when we used to do peacock trips, when I first started guiding, which was eight years ago, we would just target them in the city canals, and then one canal system in the Everglades has always had 'em. And then now they're everywhere. Now my best peacock spot is a place where I used to go very deep into the Everglades [00:33:30] eight years ago and only catch large amount there. I never would catch a peacock there and now it's become one of my best areas for peacock bass. And if we do a trip in the city canals, how we originally used to do, if we're just blind casting and they're not betting, a good day maybe we'd catch 12. And now, like a bad day in the Everglades, we'll catch 40. [00:34:00]
Tom: My god.
Capt. Rodriguez: And a good day we'll catch, like, 200.
Tom: Wow.
Capt. Rodriguez: And we've caught all the way to, like, 300 in one trip.
Tom: Wow.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, it's pretty insane. And it's crazy how...I mean, the Everglades has so much more food source in the Everglades than [00:34:30] the city canals. The city canals is a lot of glass minnows that they're feeding on. And I'm just referring to Miami because the further north you go, it gets a little bit chillier. And they have shad over there. And the shad actually survives there. Shad will not survive in Miami, you know, they're colder water species and they just die. So in the Everglades, I feel like there's so much more food with [00:35:00] all the other fish spawning and having babies and peacock bass, they eat each other. They don't care. Like, I would say when I was a young kid, the best way to catch a big peacock was always on a little peacock.
You hook him, you throw him out, and the big peacock will just eat him. And, like, every time the peacock bass spawns, when the babies hatch, they'll guard that fry ball of, like, 200 to 300 little baby [00:35:30] peacocks. And the biggest threat to that is, like, a teenager peacock bass. It's just gonna go in that fry ball and just eat it. So I think that in the Everglades they just reproduce a lot more or get...They have a lot more food to eat so they get bigger faster. But always, like, historically speaking, the biggest peacocks have always been found, like, more in the city canals. Like, the biggest one we've [00:36:00] ever put in a guide trip in my boat was 8.25 pounds that we caught him off of a bed. And in the Everglades, probably, like, the biggest I ever caught is, like, 7.5, maybe 7.75.
Tom: Drew, what's the average size of the peacocks that you catch on a trip?
Capt. Rodriguez: I would say that's one of those questions where that varies big time. That varies day to day, [00:36:30] that varies locations big time. And one of my main problems is, like, somebody will call me for a guide trip in the fall, but they'll call me in the spring for that trip, or they'll call me for a trip in the winter, or they'll call me in the summer for that trip and they'll ask me, "Where are we gonna go?" And I'm like, I guide all the way just south of Lake Okeechobee all [00:37:00] the way to almost Key Largo. So it's such a difficult question to answer, you know. But I would say the trip that I did yesterday, the average fish was only a pound-and-a-half. And we have trips where the average is 3.5 pounds. Last summer I did a trip where we caught 200 fish in 6 hours. It was so hot, it was [00:37:30] brutal out, and about 40 of those fish were over 4 pounds, and the biggest one was 6.5.
Tom: Well, I gotta go fishing with you because I think the biggest peacock I ever caught was maybe half a pound.
Capt. Rodriguez: I live here on the canal in the city, so I do guide trips in a bass tracker straight from my backyard, as well as in my big bass boat in [00:38:00] the Everglades. And if I were to walk to the edge and look in the water right now, I would see about 30 peacocks just sitting there waiting, looking for food.
Tom: Wow.
Capt. Rodriguez: And I would say more than three-quarters of them are bigger than your biggest. If you were here for five minutes or if you were here for five days, it wouldn't be [00:38:30] a problem to get you on a bigger one, and it would be my pleasure.
Tom: Take me through a day of peacock bass fishing, maybe not as hot as yesterday. But take me through a day and what you would do and, you know, what tackle you use, what flies you use, and everything.
Capt. Rodriguez: A real cool day would be the day that I became an Orvis-endorsed guide. I took the Orvis indoors...I took [00:39:00] the people that Orvis recommended on my boat. And that day I had really, you know, good fly anglers, obviously. And in 6 hours, those 2 guys caught 200 peacock bass. And that day was a day where we weren't catching very many big ones, maybe the biggest was only 3 pounds. But anytime you hooked one, there would be multiple peacocks with them. So [00:39:30] what I started them off with was a game changer that I get from the Orvis website, the plain chocolate Game Changer. And I like to throw the micro, which is the smallest one. Are you familiar with that one?
Tom: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a great...one of my go-to flies, absolutely.
Capt. Rodriguez: I have caught fish all around the world on that fly. And the micro and the largemouth bass, by the way, they love that. But I had them, [00:40:00] they were having so much fun and I'm like, "All right, guys, let's do something different." And I put a swivel on and I put one, like, Game Changer hanging out, like, a foot from that swivel. And then I put another Game Changer hanging out about 2 feet from that swivel. And we were just two at a time the whole the whole trip.
Tom: Oh, whoa.
Capt. Rodriguez: And peacock bass are so cool in the fact that, like, if you're stripping [00:40:30] and you see one coming, if you slow down, like, a largemouth, you would wanna twitch, twitch, you know, strip, strip, let it sit, and then he'd eat it, and then you'd strip that, right?
Tom: Right.
Capt. Rodriguez: But a peacock is, like, strip until you're on. Don't stop stripping. And so the Game Changer's nice and, like, white and you could see it a good ways out and you land, let it sink, maybe a split second, and you just like strip, [00:41:00] strip, strip strip, strip strip, strip, like, at that pace. And I tell a lot of people don't go as fast as you can possibly go because if you see one coming, you wanna speed it up. So you could see, like, boil behind your fly, boil behind your fly, and you start to speed it up, boil, boil, boom, and then they eat it. And the Game Changer does not sink very much. So almost every eat is a top water eat.
Tom: Oh, fun.
Capt. Rodriguez: And then I tell [00:41:30] them a lot of times, like, "All right, we're catching a lot on the bank, but some of those bigger fish are gonna come from the deep, so strip all the way to the boat." So we like to strip all the way to the boat and those fish that eat, you'll never be able to even pull it away from them because there's no fish and then all of a sudden the fish had already eaten your fly and is 3 feet down again. So that bite is the most impressive, [00:42:00] you know?
Tom: Yeah.
Capt. Rodriguez: It happened so fast and forget strip setting at that point. At that point, you're just...the last thing you did was strip and the next thing you did was you were armed, you know. There's no way to pull it away from that. They're fun, man. They're fish that I've caught, probably my first one when I was, like, 5 or 6 years old. We didn't know what the heck they were. Had [00:42:30] to go to the local bait shop and be like, "I caught this fish. They looked like this." And that's when we started to learn about them. And then I would say by the time I was 13, I was like, "This fish is too easy, I wanna catch largemouth bass," because they're the ones that always...like, you would see a big one, but you wouldn't catch 'em or you would hook a big one, but he would get away from you. And you just realize, "Man, there's so much more [00:43:00] to largemouth bass. Like, there's so much more techniques and you need this weight, with this line, with this worm, you know. And then when I started guiding, that's when I just fell in love with peacock bass all over again because it was, like, every time one of my clients caught one for the first time, it was as if I caught one for the first time, you know?
Tom: Yeah. Well that's a sign of a good guide for sure.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, that was so fun. And [crosstalk 00:43:29]...
Tom: So [00:43:30] it sounds like peacocks would be a great fish for the novice who hasn't done a lot of fly fishing...
Capt. Rodriguez: Oh...
Tom: ...I would imagine.
Capt. Rodriguez: ...a great fish as well as all the invasive species. A lot of times my biggest trouble is when I take somebody fly fishing for the first time, I gotta teach them how to bring in a fish before I could fully teach them how to even cast because [00:44:00] the moment that fly hits the water, something's eating it. So, you know, you got tiger oscars, Mayan cichlids, jaguar guapotes, which are this beautiful fish, like, they're called jaguar guapote and they're from Guatemala. And guapo in Spanish means handsome. So it's, like, handsome jaguar. They have, like, this beautiful pattern [00:44:30] on them, these funny looking fang teeth. And so you have all those fish as well as peacocks, as well as largemouth, as well as bluegill, sunfish, warmouth, you know, there's crappie in there.
I mean, it's just so many fish. So a lot of times before I get them to actually reach the bank, if they're, like, fumbling around with their fly line, by [00:45:00] the time they put their fly line together, they're on. I'm like, "Okay, now we gotta learn how to catch this fish, okay," and we learn how to catch it. "Okay, now let's work on getting back to the bank," you know. But also, like, a lot of my guys, since I'm in this area, they're guys that like, "Oh, Drew, I go tarpon fishing all the time. I'm from Colorado. I go tarpon fishing all the time in the Keys, [00:45:30] but I saw you on the Orvis website, I wanna come do this with you."
So that person is a good fisherman, but of course always wanting to get better. So because I do that type of fishing as well, and I know what it takes to catch a tarpon or a bonefish or a permit on the fly, I know it's just, like, such a hard tactic. Then while I'm guiding him for peacocks, I'm also making him [00:46:00] a better angler, telling him, "Hey, your left hand is way too idle, you know, start double hauling." I'll put 'em far away from the bank and make it more challenging. I love doing that too, because when they get off my boat, they're like, "Peacocks was fun, but I think the best part was the fact that you showed me so much more, you know, because, like, my tarpon buddies, they don't do a [00:046:30] lot of cast period. It's just like, "Hey, tarpon, 2:00, 50 feet, get 'em," you know?
Tom: Yeah.
Capt. Rodriguez: And so you've been there not practicing and all of a sudden you gotta put it all together and you can't screw it up or else it's over, you know? So in my boat we're doing a lot of cast, a lot of cast, a lot of cast. So I just get 'em better and better. And [00:47:00] I love when they get off my boat and they're like, "Dude, this was so fun catching those peacocks, but I feel like I came off this boat a better angler, you know?" So hopefully those saltwater guys could appreciate that.
Tom: That's the value of a great guide trip, right, is learning something new as well as having fun and yanking on fish.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yes. Agreed.
Tom: So besides the Game Changer, what other flies do you use? Can you catch [00:47:30] 'em on poppers and surface flies?
Capt. Rodriguez: All day long. There's, like, three flies which would be a Clouser, a Game Changer, or a popper. And if you decided that you're gonna throw, you know, one of those three flies all day, it wouldn't be a problem. Obviously, you're gonna miss more on the popper [00:48:00] than you would on a Clouser. The Clouder, I love to...You know, the Game Changer has that hook that is not really meant for peacock bass. I would say the best hook for a peacock would be a stinger hook, very sharp, thin, bendy hook. A Clouser has the perfect setup.
[00:48:30] A lot of times a peacock bass first strike is not a eat, it's a kill shot. And then even if you're fishing live bait for them, like, the live bait guys cast out their live bait, they let out slack and they leave that slack on the water and they let that peacock eat it and then run, right? So if you're watching your line, you'll see, like, a strike and then nothing happens, and then it takes off. So when [00:49:00] you're peacock fishing with the fly, a lot of times with the Game Changer, it'll be, like, a hit and then gone. And if they're not really in a mood to eat, then you don't get that fish and he doesn't really come back.
But when you have that stinger hook, if they hit it, it's just, like, glued to them automatically, you know? It makes a huge difference to have that stinger. And if I have a beginner [00:49:30] on my boat that doesn't know how to strip set very well, or somebody that only trout sets, the Clouser's the best fly for me, you know, to give to them. And then a lot of times I'll be having, like, homemade Game Changers where I, you know, changed the hook. But that is a hard fly to tie and it is...I tell people all the time there's a reason why this is the most successful [00:50:00] ever mass-produced fly ever tied, because nobody wants to tie this thing, you know,...
Tom: And they're expensive too. You don't wanna lose a Game Changer.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah. But the good thing is they last multiple trips, you know?
Tom: They do, yeah. They're so durable.
Capt. Rodriguez: If you don't lose it. And then the peacocks are not line-shy at all. So we're using 20-pound straight fluorocarbon leader.
Tom: Oh, good. I was gonna ask you [00:50:30] what leader you use, just 20 pounds straight?
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah. And a lot of times that hook is...you know, if it's in the trees or something, you just either try and jiggle it out or if it caught too good, you just point right at it and you strip it and it just comes out of the tree. The only time that doesn't happen is with a good hook. When I put the good hook on there, then if you cut that tree, a lot of times you gotta go get it if it doesn't break [00:51:00] off, you know.
Tom: Oh, is that why you like the lighter wire bendy hooks because you can pull 'em outta snags easier?
Capt. Rodriguez: No, it doesn't pull out of snags.
Tom: Oh, okay.
Capt. Rodriguez: It grabs everything it touches. So that Game Changer straight out of the package, I am not scared of that hook. Like, I'm trying to touch the bank every time, I'm trying to, like, go in the lily pads. And that's [00:51:30] the good part about that hook. That hook, you could just, like, it's really not gonna catch anything unless you drive it in. But that stinger hook, it will catch everything. But most of the times, like, if you're in a lily pad, and if you just point at it and you just pull, it's gonna come out of the lily pad, you know? You're not gonna have to go get it. If you're in some hardwood, you have to go get it because that stinger hook, [00:52:00] whatever it touches it's hooking, you know?
Tom: So it sounds like you need to fish close to structure for the peacocks, close to the bank and close to logs and things like that, ambush points?
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, as well as, like, how I was saying those fish that come from the deep that you don't see. So, I mean, if you're catching 200 and 300 fish, they're everywhere. But [00:52:30] sometimes the bigger ones are under the pads and every case is different, you know? But yeah, in Brazil, when we go fish 'em over there, or in Columbia, the biggest fish is always right next to a big old log. And he's going to eat you and he's gonna run right into that tree or right into that log. It's just their MO.
And then top [00:53:00] water popper is just so unique. Like, since we have largemouth and peacock around, we will fish that popper normal. Like, you land, you let it sit because it might get eaten right there. I always tell my clients, like, treat your cast as a pop. So as soon as that thing lands, don't move it because if you land it in a straight line, just leave it there, pop it, [00:53:30] let it sit, pop, pop, let it sit. And then if it's a largemouth, it's just gonna come eat it, go to the bottom, strips it, you got 'em. But if it's a peacock, he might miss it on that first strike. And if you see the color didn't look like a largemouth, you know, you're gonna notice that it had some orange on it or way more vibrant green or blue, they have so many beautiful colors on them, that if you missed it, you speed that thing up and you just pop, [00:54:00] pop, pop and you pull. It's kinda annihilated. It is just coming destroyed.
Tom: What rod do you like for fishing peacocks there?
Capt. Rodriguez: I use a lot the Helios 8D.
Tom: 8D. Okay.
Capt. Rodriguez: I like to use the 8-weight. And I used the D, and I used the 7-weight, and I used the D. Right now [00:54:30] I bought the F...I'm sorry, the new 4, the Helios 4. And I bought that one in the 8F because I already had an 8D and I wanted to see the difference. And I could definitely tell you that I liked the D better. That was the one that Peter recommended when I became an Orvis-endorsed guide. And he was right. That is my favorite rod.
Tom: Now, do you use the 9-footers or do you use those shorter 7s [00:55:00] and 8s in the new Helios?
Capt. Rodriguez: No, I use the 9s. I have a Blackout and I use that sometimes when we're bed fishing because maybe we're in the city canals and we don't have a backpack, so we need to roll cast everything. And so we just want a shorter rod because we have so many trees behind us, there's so much structure around us. I do use that rod. I don't love [00:55:30] it as much as my 9-footers.
Tom: I'm with you. I like the 9-footers better, but there's a lot of people who like those shorter ones.
Capt. Rodriguez: Well, I like it in the sense that it'll help you become a better angler because, like, timing is out of the window. In my opinion, timing is out of the window with that thing. It's all feel, and you gotta wait longer, so it'll help you. There's a lot of really good fly anglers [00:56:00] that do not pause. They don't stop. They just have this flow and they don't need to stop. But the moment that I put that rod in their hand, they're like, "Why is my cast so bad?" I'm like, "You gotta stop. You gotta work more on your mechanics with this rod." And it's cool in that sense because it kind of reminds you like, "Hey, you've been doing good this whole time, but you need to stop." This rod is really a transfer of energy.
And [00:56:30] then a really cool thing I would like to point out is that I have never fly fished in my life until I became a guide. So I didn't know anything about fly fishing until eight years ago. Like, I had never done it ever. And so when I started getting clients, they were the ones who showed me and taught me how to fly [00:57:00] fish. And as a guide, you never get to fish. So, you know, one trip I did with my very best client that he comes 30, 40 times a year, this gentleman bought me my first 3 setups. They were all Orvis Clearwater 8-weights. And he took me out for three days straight. I took him, but he taught me how to fly [00:57:30] fish in those three days. And we were only going for largemouth on top water in this trip. It was probably in winter time or spring. It was probably March. So it was probably spring.
And at the end of the three days, I tried to give him a discount because I'm like, "Bill, you guided me. Like, I didn't even guide you." He just gave me these three rods with a line, with the whole setup, [00:58:00] because what he wanted me to do was start doing more fly trips. And he used to have an Orvis Indoor fly shop and he used to be an Orvis Indoors outfitter in a lodge. So he's had a lot of experience with Orvis and I would not be an Orvis-endorsed guide if it wasn't for him. So he's the one that told me...I remember one day in Montana he told me, "Drew, look at this," and he logs onto [00:58:30] the website. He's like, "This is what I want you to do one day." I said, "Okay, when I'm ready I'll do that."
But even though I did that trip...like, that trip was cool because I always kinda would tell him like, "Hey, you would catch bigger fish if you paused more. Like, these fish are there and they want to eat it, but I feel like you're taking it away from them too soon." So for the largemouth bass, he would cast, and it would land, and he would strip, and he would strip, and he would strip, and then he'd move his fly [00:59:00] to a new spot. So that day I was, like, being a lot more patient and I caught a lot more bigger largemouth than him for, like, two of those days until the third day he was like, "Okay, I get it." So I was obviously not a good fly caster at that point.
And like I said, I never get to fish because I'm always working. So I learned how to fly fish in [00:59:30] my bed, like, I was thinking about fly fishing, thinking about the mechanics, and it was so weird, it was so, like, nostalgic experience for me. Like, the gears in my head just clicked, you know, and I said, "Oh my God, I think I understand this now." Like, everything just made sense, like if I had done it before. And then I go out to my backyard the next day. We were living on a farm at that point, [01:00:00] so I had a huge space. And, you know, I just casted all my fly line in three false casts and was like, "Oh, now I get it, you know?
Obviously, I had been on the water. You know, I was with one of my tarpon guide friends and he was telling me, "Drew, you're not using your left hand," and I was thinking about that whole thing in my bed and that I was like, "Oh." It was so weird. But that's why [01:00:30] fly fishing in the...And now I don't wanna do anything but fly. I don't do anything but fly fishing. When I did the trip to become an Orvis-endorsed guide, the gentleman told me...It was Ben. And Ben says...They both say to me, "Wow, Drew, you throw a nice line," and little do they know, like, two, three years before that [01:01:00] I could not do that.
Tom: You worked hard at it.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, and not even with a rod in my hand. And I've taught so many people, and I've watched a lot of fly casting videos, and it's just such a beautiful art form, you know, I just love it.
Tom: It is.
Capt. Rodriguez: Now I'm the first ever Orvis-endorsed guide in South [01:01:30] Florida for freshwater. There was never another one before me and I'm the only one. So...
Tom: So tell me about...
Capt. Rodriguez: ...it's very cool.
Tom: Drew, tell me about your seasons. You know, take me through 12 months of the year and what you're gonna target in South Florida, what's the best time for largemouth, what's the best time for peacocks?
Capt. Rodriguez: The best time for largemouth is definitely winter and spring. [01:02:00] The fish here, they deal with the heat so much that I feel like, whenever it gets cold, the fish get frisky, you know? But it also has to do with water levels, right? So in the summertime is when we get all of our rain, and usually by winter the water has dropped significantly. But lately we've been having issues with our water, where in winter [01:02:30] the water is still so high, right? So our months for top water used to be February and March, and I feel like now it's more March and April because the water hasn't started dropping until April.
And I would say March and April are the very two best months for largemouth bass. Obviously, [01:03:00] summer, peacocks. Fall, it's still...like, September might as well be summer. October is not good for largemouth yet. And I would say you're not gonna start doing really well on largemouth until like January, you know? A big part of our problem is we are so used to catching boat loads of fish, so [01:03:30] if we catch, like, 30 or 40 fish in a guide trip, I'm the only person mad in the boat. The clients...
Tom: I wouldn't be mad at that.
Capt. Rodriguez: The clients are always like...I'm like, "Man, guys, this was so bad," and they're like, "This was awesome." I had to teach myself this, you know? I was born here. This is all I know. The only reason I know about other parts of the country is when I started guiding, and started traveling, and people started taking me all over the [01:04:00] place to fish, then I started to realize and see just how different South Florida is to the rest of the country or the world. So it has been a learning curve. And I used to be the only one mad in the boat. Now, and especially fly fishermen, I don't know, like, it's not all about catching for fly fishermen a lot of times, it's about the experience, it's about being outdoors, not being behind a desk. [01:04:30] So fly trips for me are, like, very, like, peaceful, you know? There's not a lot of pressure, there's not a lot of...you know, it's very different.
Tom: Yeah, well, people aren't looking for records or they're not tournament anglers, they're just out there to have fun.
Capt. Rodriguez: Right. And then, I mean, sometimes it gets scary because you're looking down [01:05:00] at a 6-pound, 7-pound peacock on a bed because the timing is right. But other than that, like, they don't mind to...They're just in it for the experience, you know, it's not a lot of pressure on those trips, you know? I'll be so sad that we only caught 30 or 40 fish and it was the best day of their life. And it has taken me a long time to get [01:05:30] to this point.
Tom: Now can...
Capt. Rodriguez: [crosstalk 01:05:31]
Tom: ...you catch peacocks all year long there?
Capt. Rodriguez: All year long.
Tom: All year long?
Capt. Rodriguez: Even in the winter, even on the coldest day. I was with one of my clients, which happens to be that same gentleman, two winters ago. It was the day after Christmas, which was a very cold day where we happened to lose a lot of peacock bass to the cold weather. So if it gets below [01:06:00] 60...It's the reason why peacocks aren't everywhere in the country. If the water drops below 60, they start to die off. So if the water is low in the Everglades, then they don't have so many escape routes, right? So if they're just in 2 foot of water or 8 feet of water, those fish are not gonna live. But the fish that are in 15 feet, 17 feet, 20 feet of water, [01:06:30] they are gonna live because it's too cold. So that's why they don't all die. And since I live very south in Miami, the fish in my canal, I would say that's why we get the bigger fish here, is they're able to live a long life. These fish in my canal, they hardly ever die. It has to be some crazy cold weather.
But I was with this client [01:07:00] and even he was like...we were freezing, we were all bundled up. He is from New Hampshire. And we were so cold. And we went to our best cold water area. And he's like, "I don't think we're gonna catch any fish today." And I'm like, "These fish are still gonna bite, these fish are...It's gonna be awesome, don't worry." And we went out there and I think we only fished for, like, three or four hours because he had something to do. He had, like, a meeting or something and we [01:07:30] caught, like, 80 fish between him and me.
Tom: Oh, wow.
Capt. Rodriguez: So it's year round for them. But that's what makes largemouth so special, you know? Largemouth, everything needs to be right. And largemouth are so smart, right? If you're finesse fishing, all these tournament anglers and stuff, they talk about finesse fishing, right? So that means that if that fish feels you at all, he's gonna [01:08:00] let it go, you know? So you're fishing maybe 6-pound braid with a 6-pound leader, super long leader so he doesn't see it. And if he feels any of that surge of that line, he's gonna let it go. So when you're fly fishing, you got this big heavy line, those fish eat the fly so many times and you don't even know it. And they just say, "No, thank you," you know?
So it's almost [01:08:30] like you need to catch them when you're fly fishing either on top water or when they're aggressive, you know, because that's the only time they're gonna hit your fly like, boom, and you're gonna feel the hit there. If not, he's just gonna come up to it and say, "Oh, look at this snack," and then he's gonna put in his mouth and you're not gonna even know he has in his mouth you're gonna do a strip or two and never feel that fish and he's gonna let it go and go on his way. So largemouth, [01:09:00] in my opinion, I mean, that's what happens down here for sure. I've seen it happen so many times. I was like, "All right, you just messed up bad because they're going to eat it on the bank, they're gonna come out with it. So they're gonna come the same direction that you're stripping and if you don't realize that it was in his mouth, you just keep on stripping and, like, two or three of those trips, you were just picking up the slack that he was giving you, you know? So he's just...he [01:09:30] knows. He feels that and he just lets it go." And I was like, "Look, dude, your fly was here and now it's all the way over here." That was in a fish's mouth. That was in a fish's mouth. So they're unique fish and, I mean, they're my favorite fish.
Like, being a bass fisherman from Miami, I'm an anomaly because all of my friends, you know, [01:10:00] you do bass fishing when you're little and then you get a saltwater boat and you never look back, you know? But for me, once I could afford a boat, instead of buying a saltwater boat, I just bought a bass boat because that's my favorite fishing, you know? And even being from here, I would've never even thought to be a guide, but I learned that it's the most popular fish in the entire country. I [01:10:30] didn't know that bass...you know? Everybody has bass. And I put it in my mind like, "Oh, no wonder because, like, if you're from Miami, you would think it'd be called Tarpon Pro Shops, you know? It's called Bass Pro Shops for a reason. And so I never put two and two together like that because I thought I was the weirdo, you know, and then I'm like, "Oh no, everybody's like me. Just [01:11:00] not the people from Miami," you know? Even my grandfather was this old Cuban guy and he wanted to go catch food. So the very first fishing I ever learned was saltwater fishing. And I didn't ever...you know, I started to freshwater fish because I wanted to fish all the time. And the only thing near my home was the freshwater, you know?
Tom: So [01:11:30] Drew, let's say someone's on vacation, they're in Miami and, you know, if they're smart, they're gonna hire you. But let's say they're just fishing on their own and they wanna catch some peacocks. What do you suggest they look for? I mean, I don't want you to give away any spots, but, you know, what kind of canal should they look for, what kind of water, and how should they approach it if they're doing it on their own?
Capt. Rodriguez: [01:12:00] I would say that's the beautiful part of down here. Like, you do not need a guide. You get a guide, obviously, if you could afford one, and if you wanna venture out and do...you know, we kind of, as a guide, always know where to go at what time of year. But down here, you find the canal system, you look in the water, you're going to see fish, there's gonna be fish there. There's just no way [01:12:30] around it. It's like an aquarium. We live in an aquarium, and the more south you get, the clearer the water tends to be, and you get to see all those fish. So even if you're up, like, in Broward or Fort Lauderdale and you can't see in the water, those same fish are there plus more because Fort Lauderdale has those snakeheads, they have clown knifefish. It's an [01:13:00] invasive species paradise, you know? And so if you're gonna be a largemouth, you better be a badass basically, you better be a crazy fish because...And so a lot of times those bass are just gonna even have that tendency of that peacock or something because they know, man, "If I don't move fast, I'm not going to eat this fish, [01:13:30] something else is gonna get it."
But if you go to the Everglades, that's where, I mean, literally there's...If you see water in South Florida, there's fish in there. If you see water in South Florida, you could bang fish it. I have a lot of my clients ask me like, "Hey, there's a canal system in front of my hotel, do you think I can go fish it tomorrow? Like, I don't know if you're allowed to fish there." And I just tell 'em, "Look, you're in [01:14:00] Florida, you're allowed to fish there." If it's not private water, it's your water. Like, you are allowed to fish wherever." And man, it just doesn't matter if you're in a backyard home or if you're 20 feet into the middle of nowhere, there's fish in the canal, there's fish in the water. I mean, we have fish everywhere.
Tom: So literally any place, and if there's peacocks there, they're probably going to eat, right?
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah. [01:14:30] So Tom, when you said you caught those smaller peacocks, where did you fish? Just out of curiosity.
Tom: Oh, I don't remember.
Capt. Rodriguez: Okay.
Tom: It was north of Miami somewhere. I was with DJ Dan. You probably know DJ Dan, he's a videographer. And he just took us around to [01:15:00] some neighborhood ponds. Some of them...
Capt. Rodriguez: Cool.
Tom: ...we weren't supposed to be in, but we snuck in a housing development.
Capt. Rodriguez: Those are the good ones. So if there's no no fishing sign, you could fish there, and if there is a no fishing sign, you wanna fish there.
Tom: Well, shouldn't be telling people that, right?
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, well, if you're a kid, you can [01:15:30] get away with it. We're adults already, we know better.
Tom: I don't know, you put a fly...
Capt. Rodriguez: But a lot of times those no fishing signs are because it's a complex, right, it's an HOA or something. A lot of them, you could fish and never get kicked out because they're not going to kick you out. They don't want to enforce that, but they have to have that sign there for liability.
Tom: Right. That's what I figured.
Capt. Rodriguez: But obviously, you can't go to [01:16:00] a golf course. That's, you know, not meant for fishing. But a lot of those home...they want the kids to be fishing because they're staying outta trouble, you know?
Tom: Well, you put a fly rod in our hands and we're all 12 years old, right?
Capt. Rodriguez: Exactly, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Tom: That's why we love it.
Capt. Rodriguez: That is why we love it. That is why we love it. But yeah, man, it's very unique. It's [01:16:30] a cool area to fish. Sometimes it's just largemouth, peacock, largemouth, peacock, peacock, largemouth, you know. So I would say that the peacocks have made kind of, like, a big difference as to catching less largemouth down here because, like I said, that area, man, that area, we used to go there, I mean, if you did a peacock trip, you would never do it there. And then now all of [01:17:00] a sudden it's turned into my best peacock area with the biggest fish and, like, sometimes 3-pound averages, 150 fish, 200 fish, I mean, I can't even say, 150 peacocks, maybe 250 fish, but 150 peacocks and the average that day is 3.5 pounds. You know, it's just insane.
And it's just the largemouth...I [01:17:30] feel like the largemouth, I know exactly what...I think I know exactly what they do is they wanna stay away from the bank, so they're in that deeper water. So they're kind of under your boat while you're casting to the bank, you know? And I feel like that is a big...it's made a big difference. They wanna stay away from all those little fish and all the invasive fish. They just come up and eat one occasionally, and they can go back down. And, like, they eat bluegill, [01:18:00] right? Bluegill are big baits. And if they eat a bluegill, they should be good for a while, and the oscars and the cichlids, when they're small, they're the same size, you know?
Last year, we were throwing...I had my client throwing to one side with the top water, and I was in the back throwing a Game Changer. And as I'm bringing in the oscar with the Game Changer, a largemouth...We [01:18:30] could hear. We couldn't see because it was such overcast. This was probably February or March, and we could hear the vacuum of a largemouth like...and him and I just look at each other with big eyes, like, "Something's trying to eat it." So I just started letting out all my slack from my fly line, just let out the slack, and you could see, like, the line speed change. And I'm like, "Oh, he ate it." So I just kind of let him have it. But I have that super [01:19:00] small hook from the micro Game Changer, so I'm not gonna hook this fish, but I'm going to try, right? So I just, you know, let the slack out and noticed the speed change, and I'm like, "Oh, he ate it," and I kind of just let him take the rest of the line, and then I stripped it as hard as I can, boom, and I'm like, "He's on there," and I just start stripping and stripping and then a 6-pound bass just shoots up and oscar goes flying one way, he goes [01:19:30] flying another way, and he comes off. And it was like, "Oh, it's cool."
But yeah, I think that they're eating those big meals, you know, they're always gonna have my heart because they are smart. And also we have, like, a lot of running water, right? It's all canal systems. It's not like still water anymore. So, like, I feel like our bass fight [01:20:00] a lot harder here than they would catching them in a lake because they're strong fish, they're active fish, they're moving. And I feel like, you know, they say a Florida bass grows a pound a year. But I feel like our 8-pounders, instead of being 8 years old, maybe they're 11 years old, you know, or if they're 6 pounds, instead of being 6 years old, [01:20:30] I feel like he's 8 or 9 or 10 years old, you know? So he is just a little bit smarter. He's been around the block and he's strong, you know, like they are strong.
I've hooked fish before and handed the rod to a client. I said, "Here, you wanted a largemouth, here." And then the drag is just screaming. And it was on a spinning rod. And this poor kid, he had a pretty sad story. And [01:21:00] his uncle had booked this trip for him, and he's like, "Drew, I just wanna get him one big fish." So I let them fish for eight hours and they never caught a big one. And I was like, "All right, I'm gonna catch you a big largemouth right now on this little worm." He's like, "All right, I'm gonna give you this extra time, but I know you want a big fish and here we go." So it was, like, three casts later I set the hook and the drag just starts going, and we're fishing in the area that has a lot of [01:21:30] snook and tarpon because we have a lot of snook and tarpon in our freshwater. And the uncle is like, "Drew, that is not a bass, dude," because here's the drag just screaming. And I'm like, "That is a bass." I'm fishing a trick worm, like, a little worm, because the bass weren't biting, so I was throwing, like, a very finesse little worm.
And it was just meant to be. The poor kid had lost his father, you know, and so the uncle wanted to do this trip for him. [01:22:00] This largemouth is just screaming and screaming. The drag is just going and going and fighting and fighting and the uncle's like, "There's no way this is a largemouth. This is a snook." I'm like, "Look, there's nothing gonna eat that worm. There's not a largemouth." And sure enough, just a 7.5-pound largemouth finally coming up to us and jumping and going back down. And the kid was just so happy. But yeah, I feel like our fish [01:22:30] are stronger because they have to deal with running water, you know, they really have to move. It's almost like a river fish. You know, you catch these trout and you're just like, "How did that fish fight so hard?" But our running waters, to live in there, you have to be a special specimen.
Tom: Well, Drew, that has been great and a great introduction to [01:23:00] Florida peacocks. If someone wants to get ahold of you for a trip, they can go on the Orvis website, I assume that's the best place, under Florida and find you?
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, I'm in the South Florida guide section. I mean, I also have my website, which has my email on it and stuff and that would be drewsguideservice.com. But if you go to the Orvis website [01:23:30] and you're looking for an Orvis-endorsed guide, I'm in the South Florida section, along with a bunch of tarpon and snook and saltwater guys. Yeah, it's been really cool. It's been a breath of fresh air, getting Orvis clients, and then I get a lot of Orvis employees and you just see how great the company is. You know, a lot of Orvis employees come fish with me, and it's been such an experience. [crosstalk 01:23:58]
Tom: Well, you're gonna get another Orvis employee [01:24:00] next time I'm in South Florida.
Capt. Rodriguez: And I'm looking forward to it. That would be so fun, Tom. I hope you're here for a couple days and we can do a couple different things. I think that's why a lot of people come back is because, you know, sometimes I had had a guy...I mean even now I'm sure there's been a client that I've had all eight years and he hasn't been everywhere with me. There's just so many things to do, you know? And one thing we should probably talk about before we close it is [01:24:30] we have lakes in Central Florida that we go to all the time, like one of my fly clients drags me over there. And we are the only guys fly fishing there. And the reason he likes to go there is because if we fish there, we're only going to catch largemouth bass. And so that's something. You know, we love that fish and we miss that fish.
But I bet you in five years [01:25:00] this whole conversation's going to go out the drain and there's gonna be a great spot we could just go and catch largemouth almost year round, you know? It's just everything's always changing, especially, you know, the organization Captains for Clean Water are always trying to make the Everglades water cleaner and better. And when they do all those changes, it makes a big difference down here. A [01:25:30] lot of times it's not good for bass fishing because that is why we got the high water in winter that normally it would be bone dry is because they're trying not to send all that water out at once, you know? When they send out all that water at once, that's when you hear in the news about the red tide and all these manatees and snook, bass, because they're sending all that dirty water out all at once. So all these projects, they affect our fishing. But I [01:26:00] would never be dumb enough to be like, "Oh man..." you know, I want the safety of the fish. You know, it's better than us catching largemouth like we have been all of our lives. So it's better, you know, it's for the greater good of the situation, you know?
Tom: Yeah, Captains for Clean Water is one of the best organizations we work with for sure. They've done some pretty amazing stuff.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, [01:26:30] I don't know if you were able to see the...Well, I know you did see the documentary that they did, Orvis and Captains of Clean Water, and the section when they were in the middle of the Everglades, they did that part in my boat.
Tom: Oh, yeah. And they were catching peacocks?
Capt. Rodriguez: In the Tamiami Trail, yeah, that was in my boat.
Tom: Oh, cool.
Capt. Rodriguez: We did it. I mean, I told them there's an area where [01:27:00] the peacock are biting better, but this is gonna be better for the video because it's going to explain the flows of the water, you know? And if we talk about all the changes and all the flows of the water, we will be on here for days. But it's so awesome that you're doing this, Tom and, you know, I really appreciate it, man.
Tom: Oh,...
Capt. Rodriguez: [crosstalk 01:27:21]
Tom ...it's been my pleasure and it's been fun, Drew. And I'm gonna come down and fish with you as soon as I can.
Capt. Rodriguez: Yeah, I look [01:27:30] forward to it.
Tom: All right.
Capt. Rodriguez: Thanks so much, okay? [crosstalk 01:27:32]
Tom: Thank you. Thank you so...
Capt. Rodriguez: Thank you.
Tom: ...much. We've been talking to Capt. Drew Rodriguez from Miami. And if you want to catch a lot of peacocks, he's the guy to talk to. Thanks for listening to "The Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast," with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment, send it to us at