Gray Trigger Fish?
 

Anyone catch these, and have any tips on water depth, type of setup and bait?

Had some for the first time an like it a lot, never hear much talk of catching them around here though.

I don't think you can keep them right now, but to catch them put a tiny hook in a piece of chum weightless. 30lb fluro leader works. They also like live shrimp, but are good at grabbing the piece without the hook. Most rigs from 50ft on out will have trigger fish. They are usually up high in the water column. They are everywhere out of Cameron, makes it hard to catch mangroves sometimes.

Interesting - do people not like them? Do they fall into the uncool category with sheepshead, black drum and gaff top? I'll eat the heck out of em

People don't like to clean them. The texture of the meat is great. You can grill, fry, broil, saute, or poach. Back when no limits on them I use to fill a 186qt ice chest after my limit of snapper. You are right one of the best eating by far.

I like em, but NOAA says "the quota has been met."

I wonder how accurate their estimate is, do you have to tag and report your catch? Or is this just based on assessments done at the launch?

They taste better than Red Snapper, IMO. We caught and threw back probably 20-30 on a snapper trip we made earlier in the summer. They have tiny mouths so the smaller the hook, the better. I was using a 1/0 J hook for mangroves and couldn't miss on the Triggers

same people that say ARS are endangered so Im sure its very accurate.... Grey trigger is closed till Jan 1st

We caught about 50 the other day in state water out of Venice. I thought about it after we could have kept the state limit just like red snapper. Anyone know if this is right?

I know they like chartreuse gulp mullet.

No limit is available for state waters so we have to go by federal limits which has it closed. If we were able to keep them they would have to be 14 inches fork length.

Great to eat.
Tough to clean.

yep, if you have a regular fillet knife its dull after only 3 or 4 of em. we used to use those curved carpet cutting knives to get it started cutting along the fins so the fillet knife can get to the fish

the dang skin is as tough as alligator hide and that's the whole battle, getting through that leather hide they have, after that they are one of the best eating fish out there.

as for catching them they eat anything that moves from a bubble gum wrapper to a cigarette butt, just move it around and they attack like pirana.

we used to sling baits as far as we could away from the rig to get away from them so they don't steal the bait before it gets to the bottom.

if you want some fun put a swim bait on a plain hook tied to a flyrod and sight fish, pulling it away from the ones you don't want to catch :cool:

I caught a nice one in North Carolina on cut squid in about 100 ft of water on structure. Fried it up and my wife, who doesn't like fish, tore it up.