Hi Sturgeon,
Great catch, real pretty fish. I get a real charge out of your pics. Don't let anybody discourage you from posting, but if you put yourself in harms way, expect somebody to raise cain. There might even be some good thoughts in with the complaints
Your point about migratory gags is partly right but not entirely. Gags can be both, but the resident populations that would be available to divers and most hook and liners were obliterated so many years ago that most people don't remember. I dove on and/or knew about several spots in the northern and central Gulf of Mexico which held dense populations of gags for years. The fish were there all year round and only disappeared (into a cooler) when the spot became known. Once they were gone, they stayed gone. One spot was off Tallahassee in less than twenty feet of water, close enough to the beach to see people if you had binoculars. It was pieces of the remains of an old shrimp boat and held what must have been a hundred gags 10 to 40 pounds. Think about seeing a 40 pounder in that depth. The finder of the spot let me dive it once. I sat on the bottom in 12 ft vis with at least 20 big gags in sight, jostling each other to get a look at me, amazing. Realy interesting that there were absolutely none of the small grouper that normally would have been there. We had lots of rock piles off Bayport that held good size populations of resident gags. I learned very quickly to only take a few each visit. These places were good for years as long as we did not hammer'm too hard. The residents appeared to be replenished every winter, maybe by migratory fish. If a spot was completely cleaned out, the number and size of new fish was much less.
I suspect (ain't speculation great) that the original residents on your reefs were primarily black grouper, who might have kept the gags migratory.
Shot one for me next week
Connor.
