The butterfly peacock bass found in South Florida Cichla ocellaris is similar to its larger amazon counterpart the Cichla temensis . But in which way? simply they both love to blow up topwater lures. Fishing for the larger species found in the amazon the most popular lures are large topwater plugs.
These are my favorite hard swimbait lures peacock bass in South Florida. I like using these jointed lures below. These are just the right size, I try to shoot for no bigger than 4″ inches in this type of lures. Many anglers in South Florida say that the Rapala X-Rap in 008 sizes and Glass Ghost color is the best Peacock Bass lure.
Why is the hard swim bait effective for Peacock bass?
They are a great search lure when I am not sure that a new body of water that I am fishing has peacock bass I normally throw a hard swimbait. Both of these swimbaits work well for me. The catch co Mike Bucca’s Baby Bull shad 3.75” swimbait and the Truscend 3.9″ lure kit.
They have a great action to them when they are jointed, they cut threw the water great and I can fish it a variety of different ways. For Peacock bass, you do not want to reel back lures at a slow pace. I like to rip them at high speeds, if you think it’s too fast, well it is not.
The butterfly peacock bass is a speed demon and will catch up to a lure very quickly. The second way I like fishing a hard swimbait is casting it out parallel to the bank and ripping it very fast then pause, I get some monster hits using this method, very effective.
When fishing for Florida peacock bass simply the soft swimbait does not last. These fish are freight trains and tax your lures. I do not enjoy catching a nice peacock and then the soft plastic swimbait normally gets all ripped up. In my opinion, it’s not very cost-effective.
That is why I think the jointed swimbait is a great lure for butterfly peacock bass.