The captain feels that there's simply no more effective system for catching peacock bass than the live- bait method. Though he frequently uses artificial lures, his live-bait trips are far more productive.

"It would be obvious if your dinner plate was topped off with a rubber steak instead of the real thing," he observed. "Peacocks -- and fish in general -- often sense the difference between real and fake food as well."

Moser also related the story of a tournament patch-covered angler confronting him with the comment that live-baiting peacocks was "cheating." Butch looked over into the angler's vessel at his tackle -- a stout baitcasting outfit that sported obviously heavy line and a multi-hooked plug. The captain then held up his standard 4-pound spinning outfit tipped with the No. 2 wire hook. The bassin' guy got the point of the comparison.

The basic tools for catching peacocks à la Moser is a stable 25-foot Carolina Skiff, 90-horsepower Yamaha engine, and a huge 35-gallon livewell with a commercial grade aerator. His second tier of tools consists of a cast net, depth recorder, temperature gauge and six ultralight spinning outfits.

The final daily necessities that must be caught and not bought are his live baitfish. Butch used to rely on golden hickory shad, more commonly referred to as shiners. They averaged 5 to 6 inches in size and were wonderful baits for trophy peacocks. But shiners have slowly become less numerous in the canals and connected lakes where he fishes.

Moser theorized that spraying for aquatic weeds, as well as pesticide and urban chemical runoff, may have caused that decline.

Today Capt. Moser relies on the more numerous and stable stocks of threadfin shad. These shiny baits --looking almost like "Mini Me" tarpon -- generally run from 2 to 4 inches in length. The larger ones are considered just the right bait for trophy peacocks.

Step One of every trip is to cast-net enough shad for the day -- a process that begins around daybreak. Moser first scans the water for dimpling on the surface that reveals the presence of a school of shad. If the water surface is chopped up by the wind, he relies on his depth recorder to spot the baitfish in water sometimes as deep as 16 feet.

Moser's preference for this chore is a heavy, wide-bagged net that sinks quickly so that the bait schools can't swim out from under it. Since his livewell holds about 800 shad effectively, the captain shoots for about four good "strikes" of up to 200 baitfish each. Any more at once, and a lot of the shad would get crushed under the dead weight of lifting the full net from water to livewell.

So obviously, one of the tricks of the trade is finding a school of baitfish that is thick, but not too thick!