Peacock Bass Caught in Monocacy

Type: Nontidal
Region: Central
Location: Monocacy River

Gregory Worsey sent in a customer service inquiry in regard to a peacock bass that his son caught recently in the Monocacy River. The catching of this fish highlights the problem of people releasing aquarium fish into Maryland waters. Peacock bass are native to South America and grow to large sizes and are a very aggressive predator. Fisheries biologist John Mullican offered this statement. Peacock bass are available through the aquarium trade and are known to eat everything else and quickly outgrow their tank. As a tropical species, they should die when water temperatures hit about 60�F this fall. Hopefully this type of fish will not threaten Maryland aquatic ecosystems but we might not be so fortunate with the next irresponsible and illegal release of an invasive species. Citizens are urged to not release aquarium pets into Maryland waters no matter how harmless it might seem.

My 7 year old son, Geoffrey and myself were fishing with a co-worker; Jeff Price along the Monocacy that afternoon; Jeff and I were using top water with fly rods and my son Geoffrey was using a round jig head with a 2 inch brown and yellow rubber curly tail jig body on his spinning rod-reel setup. I usually fish off my boat (usually on the Potomac or at Little Seneca Lake) with spinning or bait casting gear but my friend/co-worker Jeff has been teaching me to fly fish which is why we went to the Monocacy. All three of us were spread out across the far shore wading when Geoffrey caught the peacock. He pulled it out and called out that he caught a perch and since I was a bit of ways up stream looking over, that�s what I thought it was at first given the similar coloring and the vertical black stripes. Jeff; who got to him first then realized it was a peacock bass when he saw the spot on the tail and the larger mouth. I concurred when I got over to them. Obviously we figured out it wasn�t supposed to be there which made Geoffrey all the more excited in his catch.