Like their wild cousins, the South Florida butterfly peacocks are more susceptible to fast-moving lures than to slower, bottom-hugging plastics. Bottom baits like worms, plastic crawfish or rubber-skirted jigs with a pork trailer aren't nearly as effective with peacocks as with the native largemouths. Other plastic lures like tube and grubs can be effective, though. The peacocks will often ambush them as they fall through the water.

"I like to throw fast-moving baits like spoons, Rat-L-Traps, Torpedoes, and Rapalas," Zaremba says. "They'll take a large range of lures. And during the times when they're schooling, they like the bait really moving."

"I'm a little bit surprised that they are more susceptible to fly-fishing than largemouths," adds Shafland, an avid angler as well as biologist. "It's been my experience that they can be caught four or five times better with a fly rod. It's an excellent fly-fishing species."

South Florida canal fishermen say the most productive fly offerings are surface-popping bugs, colorful epoxy minnows and small marabou streamers.

"Streamers work well, but poppers will work, too," Zaremba notes. "But you've got to be quick with them. You've got to be able to work a fly rod pretty well to catch them."

Native wild shiners produce more trophy largemouth bass in Florida than any other bait -- live or artificial. And South Florida fishermen have discovered that although peacock bass may be transplanted tourists, they have the same taste for native shiners. Shiners have become the most productive and popular method of catching these fabulous fighters. The same shiner-fishing techniques that catch largemouths will also catch peacocks.

Most local anglers impale the shiner through the lips with a large 4/0 weedless hook. The shiner is fished on heavy 20- to 30-pound-test line beneath either a foam bobber or a partially inflated balloon.

Unlike largemouths, peacocks can spawn almost any time of the year, according to Zaremba. However, they most often bed in late March through August. When guarding their beds, peacocks can be ferocious. But they are so adept at removing a tube or other soft-plastic from their nest without getting hooked that local experts resort to combining a tube with a 3/4- to 1-ounce weight to catch them.

"We use a considerably larger weight than most people would with a tube, so that the peacocks aren't able to blow it off of the bed as easily," Zaremba says. "They are really good at blowing a bait off of the bed. With spawning fish, you're sight-fishing for them in clear water, so you can watch how they react. They come up to the lure and exhale water at it that pushes it right off of the bed. So I use a big bullet weight to make the fish actually pick the lure up."

During a recent August, Zaremba's clients caught a 10 1/2-pound female and 6 1/2-pound male off of the same bed.

The winter months of December through March are the best time to experience this fishery at its peak, but the summer season is usually packed with fast-and-furious action. Alan Zaremba averages about 50 fish per outing during this period and considers 10 peacocks to be a bad day of fishing. You can reach him at (954) 961-7512.