214 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, Epznephelus morio, belongs 
to the family Serranzde, which includes many of 
