Peacock bass are colorful refugees from the waters of the Amazon Basin in South America. Photo by Michelle S. Davis

As we rounded the bend in the boat, I zipped up my parka as far it would go and pulled down on my cap to ward off the biting wind. My fishing companion, Olga Melin, was equally bundled. Little did we know we'd be fishing during an unseasonable South Florida cold snap.

We were winding through one of the many freshwater canals in the Miami-Dade area in search of butterfly peacock bass, an exotic species that has become well established in this small corner of the state. These fish are refugees from the Amazon Basin of South America, so we feared they would be suffering from the cold even more than we were. But our guide Alan Zaremba assured us the cold weather would not deter us from locating and hooking a few. Though I was not as confident, knowing that Zaremba has been fishing these waters since he was a young boy and guiding here for the last 15 years did offer hope. His guide business keeps him busy year 'round, and 95 percent of his time is spent showing his clientele how to catch a peacock.

We had not gone much farther when Zaremba had me toss out a minnow-shaped jerkbait attached to my 8-pound line. The guide advised that at this time of year, our best bet for catching a peacock bass in this canal was by trolling. He did, however, keep a rather brisk pace between 5 and 8 miles an hour. That may sound counterintuitive to South Florida anglers who cut their teeth on largemouth bass. After all, cold weather slows the fish down and calls for slow lure presentation.

Basically, peacock bass never slow down. In fact, it is common for a peacock to dart after a lure, only to break off the pursuit if its intended victim does not speed up to make a mad dash for safety. The bottom line is, under most circumstances and especially in warm weather, it is almost impossible to retrieve a lure too fast for peacock bass.

Just minutes later, I felt my line tug sharply. At first I thought I'd simply snagged the bottom until I realized, from Zaremba's big grin, that I'd hooked the first peacock of the day and my first one ever.

Peacock bass are known to be fighters, and this proved true. After a few harrowing minutes, I was holding a 3 3/4-pound peacock. It sported brilliant colors, as the name “peacock” implies, with bright golden-green scales and some red coloration on its fins. It also had some dark spotting, which appeared to form three vertical bars along its sides, and a characteristic black dot encircled in gold at the base of its caudal fin.

As Olga took her turn at trying to fool another peacock, I took a moment to look around. The canal was nothing like I had expected. I had envisioned straight, narrow ditches laid out like city streets, crisscrossing one another at 90-degree angles. I also had expected barren shorelines. After all, the entire canal system in deep South Florida is nothing but drainage ditches.

Instead, what lay ahead of me was a winding stream that meandered under low bridges, opened into serene lakes and passed by lush vegetation both on the banks and overhead. The calm, picturesque canal, which had no visible current, stretched about 40 feet across to low, steep banks dotted occasionally with various waterfowl and other urban wildlife.