212 Big Game Fishes 
The angler who visits the outer Florida reef 
and wanders from Biscayne Bay down the 
islands as far as Loggerhead will find at Key 
West and all alongshore smacks fitted with wells 
which are often filled with groupers, principally 
the red grouper, caught in fairly deep water. 
When the well is full, the smack squares away 
for Havana, where the catch is disposed of to the 
Cubans. The red grouper is a large ungainly 
fish, ranging up to seventy pounds in weight, this 
being the largest fish of the kind I have seen, its 
length being about three and a half feet. It is an 
omnivorous biter, living near the bottom, in water 
from twenty to one hundred feet deep, preferring 
the bases of the great coral reefs, where an abun- 
dant supply of food is assured. As a hand-line 
fish at such localities, it affords some sport. The 
grounds north of Sand, Middle, and East keys of 
the Tortugas group may always be counted upon, 
winter and summer, while other fishing-grounds 
are common all over the Gulf, the fish having a 
wide range, from Rio Janeiro to Maryland, in- 
dividuals wandering still farther north. The 
tackle used is a stout cod-line; the hook (I used 
a 10/o Kirby Limerick) is gauged a foot or more 
above the sinker, the theory being that the latter 
