nice hogfish pic, plus a nice kingmackeral

this is a pic of a nice 8lb hogfish taken by my buddy jeremy off the marquesas keys 35 miles west of key west in 30 ft of water on coalbin rock. water was dirty but we massacred the fish once again anyway. the king mackeral was taken by me the same day on cosgrove shoal in about the same depth. vis was about 20ft water temp was still cold,(warming up quickly though) at 68deg.it was flat calm that day,(winds were less than 5mph) i was wearing my 5mil suit still.(probably be ready for the 3mil by the time i get back from new york in two weeks) wering 20 lbs of lead is starting to be a pita! so i cant wait to switch back. the pics of the hog were taken by me,(i'm proud of that pic!) while driving the boat. the kingfish was pretty unexpected to see on the reef line. when i first saw him, he was coming in to check out our chunks of chum, and probably all the commotion from us shooting all the yellow jacks and bar jacks (we had 104lbs of them alone at the end of the day! plus 65lbs of snapper) the kingfish weighed 35lbs gutted. the pics dont do it justice, it was in the cooler that was too short for it, sit was sort of curled up and the pics dont express the size of the fish quite right. when i first saw it, i thought it was a wahoo, since i saw the tail only, so my heart was pumping. i just had time to cock the two bands on my gun and chase him down, luckily he sort of gave me a drive-by look, the started to veer away, i took a 15ft shot on him and i shot him in the guts,(its all i could manage at that angle) and let the gun go,(i had a 50ft float line attached to my tiny rob allen float,(4liter?) its really small and he pulled it right under, i wasnt ready for this, since this is my small float i only use for reef hunting to hold my stringer. i just caught it in time and called for the boat, but he was far off , tending to my buddy. so i had to deal with the angry kingfish in the water. not my idea of fun- to be honest i was a little worried about the teeth(by now i realized it was a kingfish and not a wahoo,(unfortunately! darnit!!!!) so i pulled my line in and he was going crazy and bleeding alot, i was sure a shark was going to show up just as i reached him, with all the commotion. (that area is pretty sharky) alot of big hammerheads,(12 footers are pretty common in those parts) but i got him in the gills and grabbed his throat. when the boat came i tried to hand him to my buddy driving and he snapped at his hand! it actually made an audible clack clack as he snapped his razor sharp triangle teeth at his hand. i had control of his head, so he couldnt get my bros. hand. but i had to climb on the boat, still holding him in that death lock on his throat to be safe. i got on the platform on the back of the boat with one hand, then stabbed him in the head a few times and with a little twist he finally died. i couldnt do it in the water , cause i had float line all around me an was all discombobulated with all the line and gear around me. very exciting.

foxfish said:

Fantastic catches..
I wonder why those hogfish taste so nice? Is it something different that they eat?

Click to expand...

they eat shell fish almost exclusively. the meat is fine and super white, it has been compared with crab meat in texture. they are considered almost impossible to catch on hook and line, since the wont go for bait. supposedly you can use small crabs to line catch them. they are pretty easy to shoot,(very easy actually) they tend to give you a broadside view as they look you over while approaching them. but to find one over 4 lbs is pretty rare in the keys. they shoot them up to 20lbs in north carolina, but they use scuba to do it ,(cheaters!) plus they get them up to 15lbs in the" middle grounds" - an area of deep reefs about 50 miles into the gulf of mexico off tampa ,(once again scuba guys) btw tampa is the world capitol of scuba spearfishing. seriously, the guy that runs spearboard website is a fanatical scuba spearo,and a real pr>>K to boot,(that is a consensus of everyone i know who has met him, including me!) the magazine "spearing" is almost exclusively- by- about- and for scuba spearos. i dont have the moral dilemna that alot of the db members have with this, but it certainly isnt too impressive, by any standards. especially with the hog fish, since they dont seem to move away from the scuba guys when approached.