By Terry Gibson, Managing Editor

Is there a better eating fish than Lutjanus griseus, the gray or “mangrove” snapper? I’d say no, which makes it that much more surprising that so many anglers take for granted these smart, delicious, feisty, abundant and widely distributed species. Moreover, with limits tight in places on snook, redfish and trout, gray snapper are excellent candidates for a fish fry.

Here’s the online Fish Base description of mangrove snapper:

“Inhabits coastal as well as offshore waters. Found around coral reefs, rocky areas, estuaries, mangrove areas, and sometimes in lower reaches of rivers (especially the young).”
Translation: Lots of places to catch them, which we cover below.

“Range: Western Atlantic: Massachusetts, USA and Bermuda southward to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, including West Indies, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.”
Translation: Targetable in most inshore waters from Texas to North Carolina.

“Found in fresh water in Florida.”
Translation: One amazingly tolerant species.

“Often forming large aggregations.”
Translation: You can catch a pile of them at one spot.

“Feeds mainly at night on small fishes, shrimps, crabs, gastropods, cephalopods and some planktonic items.”
Translation: Match the hatch and fish in low light or darkness.

“Easily approached.”
Translation: No need for skill on the pushpole, or a fancy technical skiff.

“Good food fish. Utilized fresh and frozen; eaten pan-fried, broiled, microwaved and baked.”
Translation: The sea’s neat, let’s eat.

Grassflat Snaps

Richard Kernish, Jim O’Brien and I leave the Flamingo, Florida bayside ramp, at the gentlemanly hour of 8 a.m. Run past the flooding redfish flats and snook and tarpon-filled gullies along several famous keys. Watch teams poling and fly casting without envy. Gluttony rides with us that day, not ambition. Mangrove snapper is the object of desire. And gluttony came prepared. Cooler full of ice. Boxes of chum. Boxes full of sinkers and hooks. A castnet. Dip net. Bait bucket. Cane poles. Yep, cane poles, as well as light, stiff graphite spinning and plug rods.

We stop on a nondescript grassflat, one about three feet deep and deploy the chum.

“Fish or cut bait?” Richard asks in my direction.

I cut bait. Dice fresh shrimp into the tiniest cubes. Remember that poling platforms make excellent cutting boards, too. Not something to forget. Richard and Jim pin the cubes to hooks normally reserved for earthworms, and pluck pinfish from the chumslick. Pluck small mangrove snappers Jim says are a sure sign we’ll find bigger fish on a deeper flat.

Richard cringes, “Ooy, the Cunj.” Curse of “guaranteed fish” and fillet knives onboard.

Jim makes no more forecasts. But they pluck a couple dozen pinfish before the school gets thick enough to break out the castnet. Sploosh. Bait by the dozens. Sploosh again, and again, and we’re off.

Crack o’ nine, we stop at a submerged tree in the middle of Florida Bay. Depth, six feet. Jim tosses a scented soft-plastic; Richard a live pinfish on a knocker rig. Nobody home. Richard looks worried; Jim’s even quieter than usual, maybe slimed the boat with the Cunj. We run, run west, but can the Cunj be outrun?

We find a little cleaner water. Jim catches a fat trout, Richard a sailcat. Farther west, we stop and drift again.

“Drift ’til we find them, and use cutbait to attract them,” Richard says. “But we won’t spend too long in one spot. If they’re there, it’s instantaneous.”

Richard nabs a trout, then another trout as Jim hooks one, too. I catch a trout. We’re in a school, but wrong species...Richard wants to run; Jim’s gut and body language says stay. We drift through the trout. All’s quiet. Then a few nibbles throb up the braided line. Swing and a miss. Pesky pinfish? Nope, Jim’s on. Got a keeper snapper. Richard stakes out. Deploys the chumbag. Fish fall for live pinfish, cut ladyfish, stripped pinfish, even soft plastics. Switch it up when the bite pauses. We don’t move til the tide falls slack low. Catch trout, hardheads, sailcats, ladyfish, a baby goliath and three limits of “chunk” snappers. Gluttony must be satisfied with five fish per person, or park rangers put gluttony under jail. Park rangers thank us for minding the limit. Rain storm washes boat on way home. Cunj outrun.

Dock Snapper

Remember that book of platitudes, All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? The crap about “Warm cookies and milk are good for you?” Well, what I remember learning in kindergarten at a South Florida public school was that humans have a very important instinct, the fight or flight instinct, and that learning a foreign language opens doors of diplomacy. I think I learned more important lessons from the mangrove snappers that hung under a local cleaning table about life on the docks.

>> Nothing is more fun than fishing, and fish are good to eat.
>> Some fish are better eating than others.
>> Often, the best-eating fish are the hardest to catch.
>> Fish bite back.

As most good dock snapper docks are, this particular dock is located near an inlet, so the water is usually air clear. This clarity imparted important lessons in the art of the angle, and in economics.

>> Cheap and easy isn’t better. Dock snappers wise up to dead shrimp fast in clear water.
>> Supply and demand. Live shrimp are expensive and not always available.
>> The barter system. Give the boat captains all the blue runners you catch for sailfish bait, and they’ll bring you a dead bonito. Mangos can’t resist chunks of bonito, unless they can see your line.
>> Life is full of tradeoffs. Light line gets more bites, but loses more hooks and weights. So tie the best knots you can.
>> There’s a food chain. Use frozen shrimp bits to catch baby grunts, pinfish and mojarra. Freeline the little fish to the big fish on small hooks tied on with loop knots so the little fish can wiggle freely when scared.
>> You’re part of the food chain, as well as a complex social network. Mom loves to fry fresh fish. Catch a few mangos, and she’ll keep driving you to the dock. Maybe let you have ice cream.

Hence the Name

Mangrove snapper nurseries include shallow grassflats or on nearshore hardbottom. Mangroves typically provide habitat for older juveniles. But in winter especially, mature fish, respectable fish anyway from 12 to 20 inches, move into deep holes in creeks and usually locate to a ledge or dead tree. (Fully developed mangrove snappers weigh up to 40 pounds, are caught on deepwater reefs, and are called “gray” snappers.)

Of all the mangrove snapper venues, mangrove shorelines are the place that they’re most apt to eat an artificial. A shrimp-tipped skimmer jig fools ’em regularly. But I’ve caught them on topwaters and streamer flies. The deadliest approaches, in order are:

The faithful fish-finder rig, a live shrimp hooked under the horn on a jighead. Especially in deep holes.

Rigging a live shrimp Texas-style with a tiny bullet weight, saves a lot of tackle from branches.

Freelining a whitebait back under the bushes after lobbing a few stunned baitfish under there. Good way to get your wrist broken.

All of the above require quick reflexes. You’ve got but a split second to pull a good-size snapper from the bush for which it’s named.

Reef Bounty

Fully mature, 10-pound-plus gray snappers are rarely caught in less than 50 feet. But 1- to 8-pound fish thrive along jetty rocks, on nearshore reefs and deep channel ledges. They grow here until large enough to make the last of their ontogenetic migrations, the migration to offshore reefs.

Usually, summer months and early fall are best for snappers on shallow wrecks, reefs and inlet jetties. We’re talking water out to 30 feet.

Donning a mask and fins is a great way to scout and to learn about the reef. Scuba tanks help if the reef tract is long.

Anchor adjacent to the reef, not on it. Create a linear chum trail. Use a bow and a stern anchor if the stern wants to swing.

If the reef is long and the fish are scattered, chumming—always a good idea—becomes imperative.

Use fluorocarbon leader. It’s less visible.

Use a variety of tactics. Snappers catch on quickly. Seem to communicate telepathically.

One angler should drift bonito chunks back into the current on a light nylon jig.

Work the bottom with a bigger jig with a larger flap of bonito or a butterflied ballyhoo on a knocker rig.

When that stops working, thread small live baitfish on a hook with enough lead to get it to the bottom. Keep the sinker above a swivel.

SWA