Big Game Fishes 



spawn and at certain places could be found and 

 fished for from the reef. Such a locality was at 

 Bush Key in the Tortugas group, where I caught 

 red groupers weighing thirty pounds with a rod 

 in twenty feet of water. They could not sulk, 

 and the rushes away and around the boat made 

 me a convert to the despised grouper if found 

 under the conditions described. The fish spawns 

 in May and June on the reef, but as I often found 

 spawn in specimens taken miles offshore in deep 

 water, I assumed that this is not a rule with all 

 groupers. Probably those near the shore move 

 in to spawn, while those living in deep water, 

 away from land, spawn in deep water; in other 

 words, I should not consider the fish a migratory 

 one. I frequently caught small individuals two 

 or three inches in length, with fly-hooks and cray- 

 fish bait, around the mangrove roots in the 

 lagoon, where they consorted with young grunts, 

 gray snappers, and angel-fishes. As a table fish, 

 when properly cooked, the red grouper is unex- 

 celled in the South. Boiled, served with shrimp 

 or crayfish sauce, is a very acceptable method of 

 serving. 



The red grouper, Epinephelus morio, belongs 

 to the family Serranidcz, which includes many of 



