The Gulf is Full of Interesting Species of Fish

"I caught a redfish and it made a thumping sound.  How do they do that?

Redfish belong to the drum or croaker family (Sciaenidae), along with the familiar seatrouts.  This family has a special set of muscles, sonic muscles, which lie alongside the gas-filled swim bladder.  The fish vibrate the sonic muscles very rapidly, and the sound resonates through the swim bladder - a bit like rubbing wet fingers on a balloon.  The vibration of the sonic muscles is one of the faster motions in the animal kingdom!  Male drums tend to be noisier than females, so the sounds may be part of spawning activity.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first of what I hope will be many questions about fishes!  Send your questions to me at askfishnerd@yahoo.com.  I’ll answer as many as I can here.  For fish ID’s, feel free to include clear photos of the entire fish if possible.

“I was bottom fishing and caught a fish that looked like a red snapper, but it had yellow stripes.  What was it?”

The fish was most likely a lane snapper (Lutjanus synagris), which bears a superficial resemblance to the red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus).  The two species can be found sharing habitat, and will take similar cutbaits.  How to tell the difference?  The yellow lines are a dead giveaway on a fresh specimen, but if a fish has been on ice and the colors have faded, a key feature that you can always rely upon is the shape of the anal fin (closest to the tail).  A red snapper has a sharply pointed anal fin which is reddish in color, while in the lane it is rounded and yellow in color.  Legal at 8 inches in Florida, it is the fish with the shortest size limit and average weight is just a couple of pounds.  Not only are lane snapper an attractive fish to look at, they are a fine quality food fish.  In my experience, lane snapper are a lot of fun to catch on light spinning tackle, and this tactic seems to yield more strikes from lanes as they appear to be more of a cryptic species based on observations of captive fish.  See the photo of the four most common snapper species in our area - vermilion, lane, gray, and red - for comparison.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first of what I hope will be many questions about fishes!  Send your questions to me at askfishnerd@yahoo.com.  I’ll answer as many as I can here.  For fish ID’s, feel free to include clear photos of the entire fish if possible.