UTER
Photo: Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Pagrus pagrus · also pinkie
How to catch Red porgy
Red porgy feed in 58–78°F water and bite best at 62–74°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 3 waters; in October they are at their peak in The Golden Isles, The Lowcountry, The Southern Outer Banks & Cape Fear.
12 pts · trophy at 20"Feeds 58–78°FBest 62–74°FIn season nowLedge / hard bottomArtificial reefWreck
About
The pink, blue-flecked porgy of the Carolina and Georgia offshore ledges — a 'pinkie' or 'silver snapper' that comes up with the beeliners and the grunts. Sweet, white fillets.
How to fish it
A two-hook bottom rig with squid strips on the 80- to 200-foot live bottom; drift the ledge until they bite, then anchor up.
What it eats
squidcut cigar minnowsmall jigs
Live bait for it
SquidStrips on a bottom rig for snapper, grunts and porgies; whole on a deep-drop rig.
Cigar minnowsNose-hooked on a stinger rig for kings, or a 4/0 circle hook dropped to the bottom for grouper.What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itLeader30–60 lb fluorocarbon
Hook2/0–7/0
Braid30–65 lb
The rule
not confirmed hereRules differ by state — check SCDNR and NOAA (South Atlantic federal rules include a spawning closure) before you keep one.
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
PPeakSSpawningAArriving·AroundLLeaving
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