![]() White patterns seemed to be the color of the week, and the fish favored patterns that possessed a good kick, as to imitate an injured baitfish. Using 6-inch long streamers, we casted toward structure with 8 weight rods and varied our retrieve. We fished for peacock bass with a similar technique one would utilize for most other large freshwater predator species. With their amazing colors and brutish feistiness, the butterflies were certainly an alluring target. With three black dots down their sides and a hue of green that seems unnatural, I was truly blown away by the beauty of these fish. We often found them in feeding frenzies, which produced boils of aggressive fish. The butterflies were generally smaller, but can grow upwards of 10 pounds. Known locally as “butterfly peacocks,” these fish provided ample action in between our encounters with the larger speckled peacocks. We also caught a different species called Cichla orinocensis. The mature version of the speckled peacock possesses bright green flanks, three black columns down its sides, and fins that range from blue, to orange, to green that matches the majority of the body. These fish display flanks with a blue-grey translucence, with overlying white dots and dashes that seem to mimic a visual display of Morse code. Pinta de lapa peacocks are complete psychopaths, and exhibit a capacity for fighting I have not previously witnessed in a freshwater fish. The juvenile fish possess coloration known as “pinta de lapa,” and this coloration may be found in fish up to 15 pounds. Speckled peacocks exhibit both juvenile and adult morphology. They are prized gamefish, and the type of fish that attracts anglers from faraway continents. These were our main target, as they can grow larger than 25 pounds. Cichla temenesis, or the “speckled peacock bass” is the king of the genus, and the largest type of peacock bass. Nearly a dozen types of peacocks are known to science, and we encountered two of these species while in Colombia. With no relation to the bass of North America, peacock bass are actually cichlids like many species in Africa, derived from an era millions of years ago before tectonic plates separated the coast of Brazil from western Africa. For these special fish, it was worth it and then some. We withered in the tropical sun, had our skin destroyed by voracious no-see-ums, and casted to the point of sheer exhaustion. ![]() During the short dry season in the Orinoco basin, donkey-sized peacock bass briefly become accessible to fly anglers. ![]() While payara became my true love during our fishing trip in Colombia, the idea of massive peacocks was the trigger for me to drop everything during the middle of a pandemic and head to South America on three weeks notice. ![]() Powerful, handsome, territorial, and ferocious peacock bass have it all. ![]()
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