UTERFlorida fish species: all 103
103 species — inshore, surf, reef, offshore, sharks, fresh water, and the bait. What each one is, what it eats, how to fish it, the live bait for it, what it's worth in the book, and the rule — with the date the rule was checked.
The points scale
rarity and size; bait scores nothingA catch scores the fish's base points times how many, up to double again for a trophy-size fish photographed on a ruler, plus ten for a photo and fifty for the first of a species in your book.
Inshore
28 fish
Snook
The linesider: a black lateral line, a sloped head and a jaw that will cut your leader if you go light.
Redfish
The red drum: a copper back, a black spot at the tail, and a mouth built for the bottom.
Spotted seatrout
The spotted seatrout: soft mouth, two fangs, spots on a silver side.
Tarpon
The silver king.
Sheepshead
The convict fish: black bars and a mouth full of human-looking teeth for crushing barnacles and crabs.
Flounder
The Gulf flounder: flat, both eyes up, buried in the sand at a drop-off waiting for something to swim by.
Spanish mackerel
The Spanish mackerel: gold spots, a mouth of needles and a run in the spring and fall that fills every pass and beach with them.
Cobia
The ling, the lemonfish: a brown torpedo that looks like a shark from the tower and rides the backs of rays and turtles.
Tripletail
The tripletail: a brown leaf that floats on its side under a crab-trap float or a channel marker, pretending to be flotsam.
Black drum
The black drum: a redfish's ugly cousin, barred as a juvenile, a hundred pounds as an adult, grunting under the bridges.
Jack crevalle
The jack crevalle: the strongest fish for its size in the water, hunting in packs that blow up bait on the surface.
Bonefish
The gray ghost of the flats: a silver fish that tails in a foot of water and runs a hundred yards on the first go.
Permit
The permit: a pompano the size of a dinner plate with a black sickle tail, the hardest fish on the flats to feed and a wreck fish that spawns on the nearshore wrecks in spring..
Ladyfish
The poor man's tarpon: a silver, jumping, tackle-slinging fish that shows up in schools wherever bait is and saves a slow day.
Bluefish
A pack of teeth that arrives with the first cold fronts and blitzes bait in the passes and off the piers.
Cero mackerel
The Spanish mackerel's prettier South Florida cousin: a gold stripe down the side over the spots, on the patch reefs and edges of the Keys and Biscayne all year..
Great barracuda
The wolf of the flats and the reef: a long silver torpedo that follows the boat, sits under the markers and hits a tube lure at a speed that makes people drop the rod.
Lookdown
A silver plate with a straight face, hunting shrimp and glass minnows under the dock lights at night.
Sand seatrout
The spotted seatrout's plain cousin, in the deeper channels and passes of the Gulf bays, in schools that fill a cooler.
Striped mullet
The fish the whole coast runs on: the bait everything eats and, smoked, the Florida dish.
Gafftopsail catfish
The sail cat: a sleek, slimy, hard-pulling catfish with a dorsal like a sail and venomous spines.
Hardhead catfish
The fish everyone catches and nobody wants: the bait thief of every dock and channel, with spines that mean it.
Atlantic croaker
The drum that croaks in your hand: a good pan fish from the bays and creeks, and the live bait the big trout and redfish in Texas and the Panhandle are caught on..
Weakfish (gray trout)
The gray trout of the First Coast: the spotted seatrout's bigger northern cousin, in the deeper channels and inlets of Northeast Florida in the cool months.
Silver seatrout
The smallest seatrout: a silver, spotless little fish in the surf and the passes, in schools, that fills a bucket on a shrimp and a light rod.
Silver perch
The little croaking drum of the grass flats and the docks, the bait stealer with a yellow fin, and a fine pan fish if you keep enough.
Spot
A small drum with a spot on its shoulder, in the fall runs off the piers and in the channels of North Florida, caught by the dozen on bloodworms and shrimp.
Southern stingray
The big brown ray of the flats and the surf, a hundred pounds across in the passes, that takes a bottom bait meant for a redfish and tows the boat.
Surf
3 fish
Pompano
The pompano: gold and silver, a forked tail, and the best eating fish in the surf.
Whiting
The whiting, the kingfish of the surf: a small, silver, delicious fish on every beach, the one that saves the day when the pompano are not there..
Palometa
The pompano's long-finned Keys cousin: a small silver fish with black-edged fins that hunts the surf line and the flats' edges in South Florida and the islands.
Reef & bottom
39 fish
Mangrove snapper
The gray snapper: red-brown, a dark stripe through the eye, and the sharpest eyes on the reef.
Gag grouper
The gag grouper: the shallow-water grouper of the Gulf, on rock piles and ledges in ten feet of water on the Big Bend and deeper elsewhere.
Yellowtail snapper
The yellowtail snapper: a yellow stripe and a forked yellow tail, on the reef and the patches from Biscayne down, best at night in a chum slick..
Lane snapper
Pink with yellow stripes and a black spot, on every patch of hard bottom and grass edge in the Gulf and the Keys.
Mutton snapper
The smartest snapper on the reef: olive and salmon with a black spot, spooky in clear water, and the best-eating fish in the Keys by many votes.
Red snapper
The Gulf's famous fish: red as a fire truck, thick as a football, on every reef and wreck from 60 feet out.
Vermilion snapper
The beeliner: a slim, bright-red snapper in big schools over the deeper reefs, the fish that fills the box when the red snapper are closed.
Cubera snapper
The biggest snapper in the sea — a hundred pounds of teeth and attitude on the deep wrecks off the Keys and Palm Beach, spawning on the summer full moons.
Red grouper
The Gulf's bread-and-butter grouper: a rusty, mottled fish that digs its own hole in the flat hard bottom and sits in it, in 40 to 300 feet.
Black grouper
The big grouper of the Keys and the South Florida reefs: dark, brassy-spotted, up to a hundred pounds, on the reef edge and the wrecks.
Scamp
The best-eating grouper in the Gulf, and the one the old-timers keep quiet about: a tan, dotted fish with a broom tail on the deeper ledges.
Goliath grouper
The giant: five hundred pounds of grouper on the wrecks, under the bridges, in the passes, eating whatever you're reeling in.
Hogfish
The hog snapper: a pig-nosed wrasse the divers spear, and the finest-eating fish on the reef.
Greater amberjack
The reef donkey: fifty to a hundred pounds of pure pull stacked over every deep wreck and tower, waiting to hurt your back.
Almaco jack
The amberjack's deeper-bodied cousin, on the same wrecks and towers, better on the plate.
Black sea bass
A black, bass-shaped fish on the nearshore reefs of North Florida in winter, in numbers, with a sweet white fillet.
Gray triggerfish
A leathery gray fish with a locking dorsal spine and teeth that steal bait like a dentist.
White grunt
Grits and grunts: the fish of the Gulf reef dinner.
Jolthead porgy
The porgies — jolthead, knobbed, littlehead — are the silver, humpbacked pan fish of the reef, a sheepshead's offshore cousins, and very good eating..
Atlantic spadefish
Black-and-silver striped discs schooling in the hundreds over the wrecks and around the markers and buoys in summer.
African pompano
A mirror with fins: a big, flat, silver jack with trailing threads, on the deep wrecks off Southeast Florida and the Keys.
Golden tilefish
The deep-drop prize: a gold-spotted fish that lives in burrows in the mud in 500 to 900 feet, tastes like lobster, and comes up on an electric reel.
Snowy grouper
The white-spotted grouper of the deep ledges beyond 400 feet, the best-eating of the deep-water groupers, and a rare fish in the book because of where it lives..
Horse-eye jack
The big-eyed jack of the wrecks, the bridges and the reef edge at night, in schools that hit a jig like a crevalle and pull nearly as hard.
Bar jack
The blue-striped jack of the Keys reefs and flats: a bright, fast, eating-size jack that follows the rays and hits a small jig on sight.
Yellow jack
The yellow-finned jack of the Keys and the deep flats, mistaken for a permit at distance, and the best-eating jack in Florida — raw, on the boat, with a lime..
Sand perch
The squirrelfish: a striped little sea bass on the sand and the hard bottom in 20 to 100 feet that eats every bait meant for a grouper, and is itself the grouper bait the old-timers keep..
Schoolmaster snapper
The yellow-finned snapper of the Keys mangroves and patch reefs, in schools under every overhang, that eats a shrimp on sight and grows to a couple of pounds.
Dog snapper
The canine-toothed snapper of the deeper Keys reefs and the Miami bridges at night: a bronze, fanged brute to twenty pounds that a mutton fisherman meets by surprise..
Mahogany snapper
The big-eyed, red-finned little snapper of the Keys reefs, in the chum slick with the yellowtails and the lanes.
Silk snapper
The yellow-eyed red snapper of the deep ledges beyond 300 feet off the Keys and Southeast Florida, caught on the deep drop with the queens and the blacklines.
Blackfin snapper
A red snapper with a black spot at the base of the pectoral fin, on the deep reef edge and the ledges in 200 to 500 feet off South Florida.
Queen snapper
The scarlet, huge-eyed, forked-tail snapper of the deep — 600 to 1,200 feet off the Keys and Palm Beach — the prettiest fish that comes up a deep-drop line and among the best to eat..
Yellowedge grouper
The yellow-edged grouper of the deep mud and ledges in 400 to 900 feet, the everyday catch of the Gulf deep-drop boats, and as good to eat as any grouper there is..
Warsaw grouper
The giant of the deep ledges: a four-hundred-pound black grouper of the abyss with a second dorsal spine like a mast, on the deep wrecks and rock in 300 to 1,000 feet.
Red hind (strawberry grouper)
The strawberry grouper: a small red-spotted grouper on every Keys patch reef that eats a shrimp on a knocker rig and makes an excellent sandwich.
Nassau grouper
The barred grouper of the Keys reefs that was once everywhere and is now rare and protected everywhere it lives.
Blueline tilefish
The gray tilefish of the deep rock and rubble in 250 to 600 feet, caught with the snowies and the yellowedge on the deep drop, and excellent eating..
Banded rudderfish
The small amberjack of the nearshore wrecks and the markers, banded as a juvenile, ten pounds as an adult, and much better eating than its big cousin.
Offshore
15 fish
King mackerel
The king mackerel: the Spanish's big brother, forty pounds of teeth that smoke a reel.
Mahi-mahi (dolphin)
The fish of the weedlines: green, gold and electric blue, under every floating thing in the Gulf Stream and the deep Gulf from spring to fall, and the best fish for the grill in the sea..
Wahoo
The fastest thing with fins: a striped, razor-toothed torpedo that hits a trolled lure at sixty miles an hour and empties the reel.
Blackfin tuna
The small tuna of the Gulf Stream and the deep Gulf rigs: black on top, a gold stripe, twenty to forty pounds of speed on the humps at dawn.
Yellowfin tuna
The big tuna: a hundred pounds and more, on the deepwater oil rigs off the Panhandle and the far edge of the Gulf Stream.
Sailfish
Florida's fish: the sail raised on the edge of the Gulf Stream off Palm Beach, Stuart and the Keys on a north wind in winter, tail-walking on a kite bait.
Swordfish
The broadbill: fished by daytime deep-drop in 1,500 feet off South Florida, or on the surface at night — a fish of the abyss that fights for hours and is the hardest fish in the book to put your name on..
Blue marlin
The biggest game fish there is — a thousand pounds of blue water — on the deep Gulf rigs and the Stream in summer.
White marlin
The small, smart marlin of the Gulf edge and the Stream in summer: sixty to eighty pounds, round-tipped fins, lit up neon behind the ballyhoo.
Little tunny (bonito)
The bonito: the striped, blitzing little tuna on the beaches and reefs, the fastest pull an inshore rod ever sees, and the bait for everything offshore.
Rainbow runner
A striped blue-and-yellow torpedo of a jack on the weedlines and the reef edge in summer, faster than it looks, and good on the grill.
Atlantic bonito
The striped bonito of the winter beaches and nearshore reefs off Northeast Florida and the Panhandle — a real bonito, unlike the little tunny, and good eating bled and iced..
Skipjack tuna
The striped-belly tuna of the deep Gulf and the Stream, in fast schools under the birds with the blackfins, and the best marlin bait alive.
Bigeye tuna
The deep-swimming tuna of the far edge and the canyons, two hundred pounds, caught at dawn and dusk on the deep Gulf rigs and beyond the Stream.
Longbill spearfish
The rarest billfish in the Atlantic: a small, slender, short-billed cousin of the marlins that turns up once in a career behind a ballyhoo on the edge.
Sharks
18 fish
Blacktip shark
The shark that jumps: five feet of grey muscle spinning clear of the water on the beaches and flats from spring to fall.
Spinner shark
The blacktip's bigger, higher-jumping twin: the shark that corkscrews ten feet out of the water on the beaches in spring, chasing the mullet and the bait pods..
Bull shark
The heavyweight of the inshore water: a thick, blunt, brown shark of the passes, the rivers and the bridges that eats tarpon off the hook and pulls like a truck.
Lemon shark
The yellow-brown shark of the flats and mangrove channels of South Florida and the Keys, up to ten feet, sight-fished in two feet of water with a fly or a bait.
Bonnethead shark
The little hammerhead of the grass flats: a shovel-headed, three-foot shark that eats crabs and shrimp, runs like a bonefish on light tackle, and is the first shark most kids catch..
Nurse shark
The sleepy brown shark under the ledges of the Keys and the reefs, up to ten feet, that sucks a bait off the bottom and then sits down like a wet sandbag.
Scalloped hammerhead
The hammerhead of the passes in tarpon season, following the schools and the boats.
Great hammerhead
The biggest hammerhead — fourteen feet, a thousand pounds — cruising the beaches and passes of Southwest Florida and the Keys behind the tarpon and the rays.
Tiger shark
The striped giant of the beaches and the reef edge: twelve feet, the mouth of a garbage disposal, and the one the land-based shark anglers dream about all winter.
Sandbar shark
The tall-finned brown shark of the winter beaches, the one the surf anglers catch off the Panhandle and the East Coast when the water cools.
Atlantic sharpnose shark
The little spotted shark of the surf and the passes, three feet long, that steals the pompano bait and fights well on light tackle.
Blacknose shark
A small, fast, four-foot shark with a smudge on the nose, on the beaches and nearshore reefs in the warm months.
Shortfin mako
The fastest shark in the sea, cobalt blue, on the edge of the Gulf Stream in winter behind the kingfish and the bonito.
Finetooth shark
A slim, fast, five-foot shark of the beaches and the bays in the warm months, in schools chasing the menhaden, and the one most often mistaken for a blacktip on the pier..
Caribbean reef shark
The grey shark of the Keys reef edge that comes to the chum slick and steals the yellowtail off the hook — eight feet, thick, and a serious fight on the reef tackle it usually eats..
Silky shark
The smooth-skinned shark of the blue water, under every weedline and around the deep rigs with the tuna, that eats the hooked blackfin on the way up.
Common thresher
The shark with a tail as long as its body, that herds bait and stuns it with a whip — a rare winter fish on the edge off Florida, hooked in the tail as often as the mouth, and a spectacular jumper..
Dusky shark
A big, slow-growing grey shark of the beaches and the shelf in the cool months, twelve feet and protected in every water it swims.