 Largemouth bass. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
Surely you have read articles and seen documentaries about invasive species and the effect that they’ve had on native flora and fauna throughout the world. Back in 2005, a sidebar to a National Geographic article on invasives listed the 100 least wanted invasive species worldwide, according to a global invasive species database maintained by the World Conservation Union. They were not listed in order of the degree of threat they imposed. Among the seven species listed in the fish group was Micropterus salmoides. Yep, the darling of the North American freshwater sportfishing community and the single-most popular predatory fish species in the U.S.: the largemouth bass. Which, by the way, was endemic to parts of the North American continent, yet is now found  The author with a huge Brazilian peacock bass. Photo © Ken Schultz By Ken Schultz
Someone recently asked me what I thought was the most exciting freshwater sportfish. I said it may be peacock bass. I had to say “may be” instead of “is” because I haven’t caught all of the world’s top freshwater gamefish. My life list does not include the (Argentinian) dorado, Niugini bass, mahseer, or taimen, for example, the first two of which I’ve heard great things about. But from what I’ve seen, the peacock bass is in a class of its own, especially when caught in its native flooded rain forests of South America. How good is it? If you tied identical-size peacock bass and largemouth bass tail-to-tail, the peacock would quickly drown the largemouth. As it happens neither of these sportfish are actually “bass.” And, as it happens, |
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