Thread: Types of Fish

Originally Posted by ashtonn27

Thanks for the link. I was catching a bunch of Whiting one afternoon and someone told me they were Croakers. I have been mis-identfying them ever since (about 8 months now). Now that I know what they are I will have to keep a few to eat. I am slowly learning what's what. It is quite a bit different going from fishing in Wisconsin my whole life to fishing down here now.

+1 on the "WELCOME" ashtonn27

Mis-IDing fish is even more common when folkses insist on using the the local or 'colloquial' names for fish.
"Whiting" and "ground mullet" are two such notorious colloquial names as neither is actually the true name of any fish species in our area.
Many of us find that using a fish's common name is much less confusing, such as in the the case of the three near-shore drum species often referred to as "whiting" and "ground mullet" which are actually named kingfish, though folkses on the Mid-Atlantic coast may refer to them as "king croakers"...

Florida Sportsman Sport Fish of the Gulf of Mexico Book: Vic Dunaway, Eric Wickstrom, Bryan Henry, Kevin R. Brant: 0053394000330: Amazon.com: Books
Very easy to use.

Sometimes I get a chuckle---last week, a man was all excited about the "yellowfin tuna" he had just caught. He would not listen to the possibility that it was a jack crevalle. Same thing with a guy earlier in the year who was so proud of his "yellow jack".

This post should be a sticky. Very useful.

Originally Posted by Pier#r

Of the 100 or so species of fish available to be hooked from the pier, only about a dozen are regulated.
That's a good place to start ;-)
http://www.outdooralabama.com/sites/...20printing.pdf

Of those 12-15 species, only 8 can be referred to as 'common' catches on the pier.
So I put them on the back of my business card...


Easily THE most commonly caught regulated fish on the GSPPier would be Spanish Mackerel,
and they don't even have a length requirement.
They are however, easily confused with juvenile king mackerel, which must measure at least 26" fork length (FL).
Learn to tell the difference:


And since shark fishing is taboo on the pier, IDing those species is rendered irrelevant.

The rest should be easy ;-)

Are the fold out guides from Dr. Shipp available at J&M or any other retailer down there?

Originally Posted by Haywire

Sometimes I get a chuckle---last week, a man was all excited about the "yellowfin tuna" he had just caught. He would not listen to the possibility that it was a jack crevalle. Same thing with a guy earlier in the year who was so proud of his "yellow jack".

It then can be said "He Doesn't Know Jack"