Fish Species Firsts

Twice in this year's travels I've gotten opportunities to target and catch localized black bass species that I had never caught (or seen in person, for that matter) before. In Texas, a couple of months ago, I caught a Guadalupe bass, which looks a lot like the Coosa redeye bass we have in some of the rivers around here. Last week in Florida, I got to add a Suwannee bass to my lifetime list. Both were caught on Rebel Crawfish.

As you can see in the photo above, Suwannee bass look a lot like smallmouth bass, and they act like smallmouths, too. They definitely favor current, they hang out around rock, and they feed heavily on crawfish. Different from smallmouths, Suwannee bass have turquoise coloration on their cheeks and undersides, their eyes tend to be a bit bugged out, and they are notably smaller (record is less than 4 pounds). Oh, and they live in Florida and a couple of rivers in South Georgia.

While in Florida, I also got to catch my first butterfly peacock bass. I'd caught peacocks previously on two different trips to Brazil, but none were butterfly peacocks, which is the kind that lives in the canals of South Florida. The butterflies are beautiful colored and brutally strong, just like their larger cousins.