Veracruz & the Campeche Gulf Coast

Snook

Centropomus undecimalis

Florida's premier inshore gamefish, built around one unmistakable black lateral line. Snook ambush bait from mangroves, docks and bridge shadows, then fight for structure the moment they are hooked.

Red Snapper

Lutjanus campechanus

The scarlet prize of the Gulf — red snapper stack on reefs, rigs and wrecks in deep water and pull baits down hard. Peak sport comes in the warm summer months.

Tarpon

Megalops atlanticus

The silver king — a giant, chrome, leaping gamefish that defines Florida's late-spring flats and passes. Sight-fished with bait or fly, it is a fish of a lifetime.

Lane Snapper

Lutjanus synagris

The small 'candy' snapper of Gulf grass flats, named for its neat yellow stripes and a dark thumbprint spot below the soft dorsal. What it lacks in size it makes up for in numbers — schools gather over grass, sand and patch reefs and bite small baits freely, making it a beginner-friendly Gulf favourite.

Mayan Cichlid

Mayaheros urophthalmus

The Mayan cichlid is a hardy Central American cichlid now widespread in South Florida canals, marshes and the Everglades. It tolerates salt water and spreads through canals, bites small baits aggressively, and makes a fine panfish. In Mexico, the same species complex is the 'tenguayaca', a valued local food fish.

Mexican Snook

Centropomus poeyi

A Gulf of Mexico endemic found only from Tamaulipas to Campeche — the Atlantic fish that carries the name robalo prieto, which on the Pacific coast belongs to black snook. It lives most of its life in rivers and lagoons and runs to the sea only to spawn.

Mojarra

Gerres simillimus

A complex page: in Mexico 'mojarra' covers several near-identical silvery gerreids — represented here by the Pacific yellowfin mojarra Gerres simillimus and including Eucinostomus spp. of both coasts (spotfin and relatives). Tiny hooks, lagoons and surf troughs: Mexico's classic kids' first fish and a beloved little table fish.

Tenguayaca (Bay Snook)

Petenia splendida

The big predatory cichlid of Tabasco, Chiapas, Petén and Belize — the local tenguayaca, a fish-eater with a spectacularly protrusible mouth, fished in green and pink-red forms in lakes and slow rivers.

Tropical Gar

Atractosteus tropicus

The tropical gar — the pejelagarto — is an air-breathing, armour-plated predator of the swamps from Tabasco to Costa Rica and Tabasco's most emblematic freshwater fish. Handle with care for its razor teeth — always with a glove or jaw grip.

Western Atlantic Sea Bream

Archosargus rhomboidalis

A small, tough little porgy of lagoons, mangrove swamps and grass flats — more an inshore fish than a reef fish. It tolerates brackish water and is a regular catch around docks and grass beds.

Littlehead Porgy

Calamus proridens

One of the smallest and prettiest porgies, important commercially on Campeche Bank and common off Florida. It hugs sponge and coral bottom inshore and near shore.

Guachanche Barracuda

Sphyraena guachancho

A schooling, yellow-tailed barracuda of turbid inshore water and estuaries in the western Atlantic (with a separate eastern Atlantic population). It hunts anchovies and herrings in murky bays where the great barracuda is scarce.

Flagfin Mojarra

Eugerres plumieri

A striped mojarra of western Atlantic lagoons, mangroves and estuaries from South Carolina and the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil — absent from the Bahamas and most smaller West Indian islands — valued as food and as bait. Note: the accepted genus spelling is Eugerres (one 'u' after Eug-), not 'Euguerres' as in the brief.

Dusky Flounder

Syacium papillosum

A small left-eyed flounder of Caribbean and Gulf sand bottoms that buries itself to ambush small fish and invertebrates, taken incidentally and deliberately on small bottom baits and jigs.

Gulf Toadfish

Opsanus beta

A squat, grunting bottom fish of Gulf bays that hides in cans and shells, guards its nest with a boat-whistle call, and snatches almost any bottom bait — handle carefully and expect to release it.

Planehead Filefish

Stephanolepis hispidus

An amphi-Atlantic filefish solidly recorded across the western Atlantic from Nova Scotia to Uruguay as well as the eastern Atlantic — in our waters a familiar small catch over sand, weed and reef edges from Florida through the Gulf and Caribbean.

Southern Puffer

Sphoeroides nephelus

A common Gulf and Florida puffer of bays and flats that readily takes small baits — but like other puffers it can carry tetrodotoxin, so it should always be released and never eaten.

Striped Burrfish

Chilomycterus schoepfii

A spiny western Atlantic burrfish of seagrass and bays that inflates into a ball of fixed spines when threatened — a curious incidental catch to handle gently and release.