Gag Grouper

Gag grouper are gray to brownish gray with a kiss-like pattern of darker worm-shaped blotches on the sides, a squared tail with a thin white edge and, on large males, a dark charcoal belly. They are often confused with black grouper, which have rectangular dark blotches and bronze-edged fins. Gag range from North Carolina through Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatán, with juveniles in seagrass estuaries and adults on hard bottom from 30 to 300 feet. Red grouper, the other staple of the same fishery, are rusty-brown with pale blotches and a straight-edged dorsal fin and live on the same ledges.

Gag are ambush predators that hold tight to ledges, rock piles, wrecks and springs and rush out to grab pinfish, grunts, squid and crabs before diving back into the hole. In the fall and winter, big gag move onto shallow nearshore rock in 10–40 feet along Florida's Big Bend and Nature Coast, where anglers troll plugs over the bottom. The first few seconds of the fight decide everything: the fish must be turned before it reaches the rocks. Managed under strict quotas, gag have short recreational seasons that anglers watch closely.