South Florida's interconnected freshwater canal system runs through suburbs, golf courses and behind the back fences of houses that no longer think of the water out their window as a fishing spot. Darcizzle's latest land-based video changes that, and over a single afternoon with local guide Justin she lifts four distinct species off the bank - peacock bass, jaguar cichlid, bullseye snakehead and largemouth - on light tackle and live shiners.
"We're doing some land-based fishing today for exotics, particularly the freshwater canal systems down here in South Florida," she opens. "Hopefully we're going to catch peacock bass, jaguar cichlids, all kinds of cichlids, largemouth bass, snakeheads, clown knife fish. There's all kinds of cool things to catch down here in South Florida."
The rig is deliberately small. "Let me show you quickly using a tiny circle hook," Darcizzle says as she walks the camera through the leader. "I believe that's like a size one circle hook and I tied it on with a loop knot. We're using 15 lb fluorocarbon leader as our main leader. And then for my reel, I'm using the Carbon Prism 2000 from Piscifun." The mainline is 15 lb braid. The bait of the day is live shiners pinned through the mouth and one nostril.
The first lesson at the first spot was that local peacock bass do not always behave like peacocks. A pair of bedding fish refused to commit to the live shiner. "It's actually crazy how they can blow it so far," she says as a 1.5-pound peacock pushes the shiner sixteen inches off the nest with each cast. "Like and this guy is like, I don't know, pound and a half and he's blowing it like 16 inches away from the nest every time it hits the bottom. So I'm using a dead shiner and just aggravating him enough to hopefully just eat it."
A hooked fish was lost to a slipped knot - "My 10 lb line slid through my knot. I'm a jerk. I tied that really good too," - and both Darcizzle and her cameraman re-rigged after similar pop-offs. "Both Brian and I were fishing our Piscifun reels and we both lost our hook and our leaders cuz we're Googans. So I got re-rigged, moved to a different location."
The relocation produced the first species. A short side-cast into shoreline structure was loaded up and Darcizzle was on. "Letting him run. Awesome. Oh boy. It's a little too light I think. That's a jaguar, right? Like jaguar cichlid," she calls as the fish comes in. "Thought I had a peacock for a sec. That's okay. Nice fight. Nice fight. There he is. So pretty." The fish - a small but cleanly-marked jaguar cichlid - went back into the canal.
The day's two highlights, by Darcizzle's own count, came on the back half of the session. The first was a peacock bass that finally committed in a different stretch of canal. "All big male peacocks today," Justin called as she landed it. The bigger highlight - and the moment that justified the whole urban-canal mission - was a bullseye snakehead that loaded up on a live shiner and went into a slow alligator-style death roll on the leader.
"I usually don't really catch a lot of my snakeheads on live bait," she said as she leaned over the fish. "It's very rare. I have caught them, but you see the circle hook right in the corner of the mouth. That might be my biggest one on live bait. And he put up a big fight. That's why he came in backwards cuz they do kind of like a death roll like an alligator would when you hook him."
The fish was a bullseye - and not the better-known northern snakehead. "No, that is not a northern snake head that a lot of you guys are familiar with up north. That's a bullseye," she said. "Look very similar, but they're not similar at all. And their shape and their pattern is completely different too."
The release became the day's most pointed conversation. Bullseye snakeheads are technically invasive in Florida, and the regulatory line on what an angler must do with them is not as hard as it is for northern snakeheads in Pennsylvania and other northern states. Justin, who guides the system regularly, made the call. "He releases all his snake heads, so I'm going to do the same," Darcizzle said. "It's not illegal to release them. It's not. It's like they're invasive. Right. But you have the option to not release them. Right, it's not like the northern you guys have up in like Pennsylvania or up north. Like you can't transport them or do - you have to kill them when you see them."
The wider point Justin made on camera was that the lower South Florida exotic ecosystem now has charter captains making their livings on fish that technically don't belong there. "And like our clown knife fish down here, they're technically don't belong here either, but everybody releases those, you know, treat them as a catch-and-release sport fish. So, a lot of people do the same with the bullseye snakeheads. Also it helps the charter captains who make their livings on clown knives."
The day closed with a four-species personal walk - largemouth, peacock, jaguar cichlid and the bullseye snakehead - all from public bank access on canal stretches that Justin acknowledged 'all say no fishing, every single spot.' The legal status of land-based access on those individual stretches varies, and the video flags it openly. The fishing itself, on size-1 circles, 15 lb fluoro and live shiners, was a straightforward demonstration that South Florida's urban water is one of the densest exotic-species fisheries in the United States.
*Source: Darcizzle Offshore, 'These Florida Urban Canals Are LOADED With Exotic Fish! (Illegal Fishing?),' published April 2026.*