An Oscar is a member of the Cichlid fish family. There are more different kinds of fish in the Cichlid family than in any other fish family in the world, yet there is only one member of this family native to our country, the Rio Grande perch in southern Texas. Someday I hope to fish for Rio Grande perch, but this time my interest was in the Oscar.
In the 1800's South American Oscars were brought to this country as entertainment slaves to be held captive in people's homes in glass bowls. Their only purpose that I can see is cat television. Currently the Oscar is the predominate fish in the Florida Everglades. There is some debate as to how it got there, but it probably escaped from a tropical fish farm. The other possibility is that a breeding age pair of Oscars acquired their freedom when some aquarium owner got tired of his hobby and released them, hoping they would start a new life.
Before the Oscar arrived in these waters, largemouth bass were the local stars. The bass are still there, but the Oscar is the more aggressive fish, bringing the bass down a notch in the food chain pecking order, making the bass smaller and less plentiful than they once were.
I arranged a fishing trip near Ft Lauderdale in one of the Florida Everglades canals with fishing guide, Jack Allen. When I arrived at the meeting place Jack informed me he had another client that afternoon, so we were only going to fish in the morning. Jack fished for largemouth bass while I fished for Oscars. He fished with a fly rod using poppers hand made from pieces of Styrofoam he'd found floating on the canals on his previous fishing trips. He caught lots of bass, one after another, but the biggest was less than 2 pounds. I fished for Oscars which came in just under a pound.
Every time I caught an Oscar Jack said, "Alright" or "Good going!" or some other positive exclamation. Guides are supposed to do that, so you go home and remember you caught fish and tell your friends about the experience and hopefully, they too will hire the guide, supporting his fishing sickness. Jack praised me every time I caught a fish and I received a lot of praise because I caught a lot of fish. But every time Jack caught an Oscar it was a different story, "... another inevitable Oscar", because Jack doesn't like Oscars. I think if I weren't there, the process of catch and release would have been catch and destroy. I had an image of him stuffing the Oscars with little sticks of time delayed TNT before he released them. He said something about how they would make good clay pigeons.
Oscars aren't rough fish; they're just something few people are aware of. Oscars are good eating. They are one of the most popular food fish in the world. They are not popular in the USA, because they are new here and few people are aware of them. We found other boats with people fishing for Oscars, but not many. If you ever want to fish for Oscars, I suggest you go to the Florida Everglades and use your ultralite spinning rod with the smallest beetle spin you can find. It works, I know. And fun? And how! This fish fights like Mike Tyson. And there won't be a lot of boats pulling up next to yours when they see you pulling in your limit. The fish are everywhere and the fishermen are few and miles between.
I've wondered about fishing guides and whether they fish to make money or whether they make money so they can fish. The answer came when quitting time arrived. Jack did the "one more cast" routine for half an hour. I haven't talked to him since our outing, but I'll bet he was late for his afternoon fishing trip.