South Florida Bass Fishing Reports | Blog

Henry Waszczuk host of “Fishing the Flats” joins us on the Amazon King!

For those of you that have seen the show you know that Henry travels to some of the most exotic fishing and golfing destinations in the world. His shows Fishing the Flats and Fins & Skins Classic Adventures are both awesome! They are celebrating 25 years of television and we are very happy to be a part of bringing their audience to such a special place as the Amazon and its rivers!

Henry and I would love it if you were able to join us on this prime week to fish the upper Rio Negro in Brazil. The dates we have selected are :

* January 29th – February  6th 2011 – $2,991

There are only 10 spots left on this trip so get your reservations in early as we expect this week to fill up rather quickly. Please inquire to our offices here in Miami.

* Please call for Pricing!
* Discounts for groups and early bookings!
* Agents Welcome!

The price of the trip is all inclusive and includes 6 1/2 days of guided fishing, a night at the Tropical business hotel in Manaus and all food / drinks while on board the yacht. I hope that a few of you can take advantage of this special pricing and join a great group of anglers for an unforgettable week fishing for monster peacock bass!

Seeeeya on the river!

Steve McDonald
President

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.
(877) 352-PKOk – Toll Free
(754) 264 – 9001 – Cell

We love having kids on the boat and kids love peacock bass!

Today was another great day for peacock bass fishing here in South Florida! Eric Snider brought his son and nephew out for a day of peacock bass fishing here in Miami. Our day started out with a hitch with us losing about 3/4 of our live baits that we bought in the morning. I told the boys that we were going to be sight fishing a lot for them and that we would be o.k. with the dead ones. We saved the last of the live ones for the real finicky fish. It took the guys a few fish to get used to what we were doing but once they figured it out it was on!

We moved around quite a bit today and did so freely as we were the only boat on the water! This nice family from the midwest had blast catching our tropical fish today. We landed a bakers dozen or so before calling a day. I know they will be back soon for round 2! See you all then…
Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Tim and Nanci Duke caught a couple of monster peacocks with us!

Today was a great day for peacock bass fishing here in South Florida! The high skies and warm weather is the perfect recipe! These fish are in a full on spawning mode right now and are very protective of their fry. The key to being productive is just moving around until you find them. Well as you can see we found them!

Tim wanted to catch the peacocks on artificial baits which can be a challenge so I had him throwing a Rapala a topwater bait but once he saw the way that the peacocks reacted to a live shiner vs. the plug he was sold on pitching the shiners around for the rest of the day! It is really a different and a fun way to fish a live bait. We had around 15 fish or so up to 6 pounds. Until the next trip!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Me with a nice bass from our trip today in the Florida everglades!

Today I am out with John Periera and his son for a 6 hour bass fishing trip. I met the guys at Everglades Holiday park and we were off. We fished soft plastic worms on deep ledges in the morning and caught a bunch of bass but nothing really big. We also missed a few as well. I switched to a junebug trick worm and started to pick a few fish up that way as well.

After a short boat ride we decided to try for a peacock bass near the boat ramps with no success. Just last year you could just about always catch a few peacocks by the ramps but not this year…we did manage to boat a few more largemouth on a gold and black Rapala x-rap though. I think we had about 25 in all up to 4 pounds. Lots of fun on a hot Summer day!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Click the PLAY button above to watch a video of some summertime bassin’ with us!

I hope that you enjoy some of this footage. Sure it is HOT down here right now but so is our freshwater fishing!! I wanted all of you to see what a good time we are having this summer of 2010. There are endless fishing opportunities and species to target here in our many lakes and canals of Southeast Florida. We are teeming with life…but don’t take our word for it…come and find out for yourself!

I hope to see all of you soon here in sunny South Florida! Until then…

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Jose from Weston, FL. and another nice bass in the Everglades!

Jose has been fishing with me now every month for 3 or 4 months. We have had great trips on each occasion and I enjoy his company. His buddy Henry was here for round 2. The 3 of us had fished a couple of months ago out on alligator alley and crushed the bass all day long and with some big fish in the morning. We were looking to repeat the process today!

The fishing started out rather slow for us in the morning much to my surprise… We worked some moving water first with only a couple dinks making their way onto our boat. We finally busted one good one in the later part of the morning. That one was a long time coming… There was so much current in that canal we were fishing that I decided on moving to another part of the system which did not have as much current running. That is where we were finally able to put something together and got our numbers up. The best bait for us was a watermelon red Zoom super fluke thrown tight up to the edges. We also had a good frog bite going but you had to throw the bait up on the shore. Once it hit the water boom it got bit! We had about 40 bass on the day between the 3 of us and our best 5 weighed around 20 pounds. Awesome!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Another scrappy butterfly peacock bass in Miami, Florida

Today I am out doing some peacock bassin in Miami with Skip from Alabama. This is Skips first trip after the peacocks and was it ever a good one. We only had 4 hours to fish today so we went to work quickly. As I was idling away from the boat ramps we saw a school of jack crevalles busting minnows on shore. Naturally we made our way over there to hang a few during the feeding frenzy. These saltwater fish are awesome fighters with their forked tail and can really put it to you on light bass tackle. Skip also got a snook around the schooling jacks which was cool.

After the topwater action died off I saw a couple BIG carps tailing near the bank where people will feed them bread. I saw a local toss a cigarette butt in the water only to have one of those giant carps devour it. After watching that I had skip launch the white topwater lure we had tied on for the jacks. It hit the water and BOOM this 80 pound freight train is on and pulling drag. Skip and I could not believe that this thing crushed a topwater plug like that! After a 2 or 3 minute battle we lugged it up to the boat for some photos and a release. After all this was a peacock bass trip so Skip and I proceeded into the canals for the last couple of hours and caught 5 or 6 peacocks up to 3 pounds.

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Me, Steve McDonald with a monster peacock bass in the Amazon!

Hey guys it is that time again to start gearing up for our Amazon adventures fishing in the Amazon rivers of Brazil for monster peacock bass! I live for this trip every year and get like a little kid on Christmas morning again in the months preceding the trip. This year will be no different!

I am introducing a new yacht that is very nice and has a world class staff on-board. We will be fishing the upper Rio Negro and its tributaries. Whether you are an experienced peacock bass angler or a first timer to the Amazon I would love it if you joined us this fall for an awesome trip with the Amazon King group. They do a great job with everything! The dates of the trip are from October 29th – November 7th 2010.

The Amazon King Yacht is the perfect home base operation for your Amazon adventure. Whether you are in search of a monster peacock bass, giant catfish or on a nature excursion you will never feel too far away from the comforts of home. Enjoy ample sized staterooms with storage for your clothes, clean bathrooms / private showers in your suite, daily laundry service and gourmet meals are prepared daily by our world class chef in the galley.

If it is entertainment that you require while off of the water then relax at the bar up on the flydridge and have our bartender make your favorite cocktail or play some poker in the game room. You can even catch a movie, check your e-mails and stay in touch with colleagues or family members via our on-board satellite communication system. Here is a link to a video on the yacht:

Amazon King Tour – http://www.youtube.com/smcdonald86#p/a/u/1/rcNHtcdBRJ8

Call me directly for more information on this adventure or feel free to visit us on the web at www.monsterpeacockbass.com for more information on this trip and the other fishing packages that we offer. Now lets go peacock bass fishing!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Ben and Tim Ross with some nice bass in the Florida everglades!

Day two for this father and son team brought with it another nice South Florida morning and some good bass fishing. We fished out of Everglades Holiday park and had a great trip. Again we were scheduled for a full day of fishing and had hoped for the weather to cooperate with us today.

Well…in true form the clouds started building up in the early afternoon and for our own safety we decided on not becoming a lightning rod and loaded up the boat on the trailer. After a quick bite for lunch I dropped the boys off at their hotel and watched it pour down rain on me all the way home. We sure made the right decision on leaving when we did…Here are a couple of our bass from the day!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald
Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Ben Ross from PA with a beautiful butterfly peacock bass in Florida!

Today is day one for Ben, his Dad Tim and I. This morning there were high skies so I suggested we start out on the peacock bass in Miami. The afternoon thunderstorms have been relentless this week and we are sight fishing quite a bit so we took advantage of the blue bird conditions we had. We launched at the ramps at the Miami Intn’l airport and were off.

We had a good morning fishing for the feisty critters landing a bakers dozen or so. We had scheduled a full day trip but at 1:00 the skies looked they were going to open up and swallow us so we opted for the a/c in my truck and headed for the house. We have to live to fish tomorrow!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald
Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Andrew Grove with a tarpon he got peacock bassin’ in Miami, FL.!

What an awesome half day trip Andrew from Corpus, Christi, Texas had today! Unbelievable is all I can say about how high this fish jumped when it found out that it was hooked. We got it under a bridge and it almost hit the conrete bottom when it came a leapin! We both were praying that that little #4 Mustad hook did its job…well the proof is in the pictures! Way to go Mustad!

Since this was a peacock bass trip after all Andrew and I decided to go about out business and leave the tarpons alone. We got into a dozen or so peacocks in 4 short hours. I know that neither of us wanted to leave. Until the next trip…

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Young Lad and a nice 21 inch Florida strain largemouth bass!

Jim knapp brought his son in law and nephew out bass fishing today in the beautiful Florida everglades. What a day we had! It was great action from the time we started fishing at 7:00 until 11:00 or so when we left for home! We only hit 2 different spots today. I bet we caught 50 or so up to 5 pounds.

Young Lad as the guys call him took home big fish of the day honors I believe with this 21 inch largemouth that he caught on a Gambler Big EZ swimbait but Ken and Jim each had a couple that were pushing 4 pounds. The color of the day was 49 er. Great job guys!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald
Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Jose from Weston with one about 6 pounds in the Florida everglades!

Jose is a repeat customer that lives right here in Weston, FL. We have had a couple good trips together now. The one today was no different. We started out on a spot I found last week and dissected it with precision throwing a large worm on the bottom. The first fish was around 5 pounds and so was the second. Then Jose hooked into this beauty. After the action slowed there we moved a bit south and hit another spot with similar features. The first cast his buddy Luis from Puerto Rico landed one about 5 1/2 pounds.

Our best 5 bass would have been around 22 or 23 pounds. We spent the remainder of our day catching fish, laughing and just having a ball. Come on down and lets go bass fishing!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald
Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

Jim Heffner with a beautiful butterfly peacock bass in Miami!

The weather is hot and so is the peacock bass fishing. An average day right now we are catching between 12 and 25 fish depending on conditions and clients preference between live and artificial baits. The numbers with live baits are generally higher for the peacock bass but if it is an awesome top-water bite that you are after then come prepared to work hard. I can personally tell you that the reward is well worth it!

Jim and I had a blast today and I do not know the final total but it is was up there around twenty or so. What an awesome fishery we have here in Southeast Florida!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald
Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.

John Venters of the Altanta Braves with a butterfly peacock in Miami!

John Venters Jr. is a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. He and his Dad John Sr. are both bass fishermen from the Orlando, FL. area that had a day off here in South Florida. They decided on some peacock bassin’ with me in Miami! We launched the boat at the Blue Lagoons near the Miami airport. This is a fantastic fishery right in the middle of metropolitan Miami!

Our first couple of hours were a bit slower than we would have liked with only one fish in the boat. Once the sun came up though and I made a little move to a new area we started to see the fish. The guys had a great time sight fishing the peacock bass in the gin clear water of our canals. The tally was 22 by the end of the day with the guys tying at 11-11. It is really a blast to catch these peacocks so you need to get here soon and experience it for yourself!

Tight Lines,

Steve McDonald

Bassmaster Guide Service Inc.
Southwest Ranches, FL.

Call us toll free at (877) FLA-PKOK or (888) 8-GLADES for more information on our trips. You may also email us at booking@bassmasterguideservice.com. We would love to hear from you.