By: Capt. Tony Young
Ioften compare spearfishing to bowhunting, there are a number of similarities. If you enjoy hunting on land, you will certainly enjoy hunting underwater. Another comparison that stood out this summer was the similarity of spawning fish to whitetail bucks coming into rut. With the delayed summer mutton snapper spawn, I noticed a lot of behavior from the fish that has not been as prevalent in previous years. As we come into the middle to tail end of summer, start comparing your fishing notes to your time spent in the woods. This will be a fun read, let’s dive in!
It’s no secret that the mutton fishing has been much slower than last summer’s mega spawn, it seemed like the big spawn just would not come. Diving though, we noticed some very interesting behavior by the fish. Through the months of May, June, and part of July; large mutton snappers spent more time than normal searching on the shallow and deep reefs. By searching, I mean large mature fish looking for others to spawn with. An individual fish will swim till it finds another, then those two will swim until they find others, and so on until the spawn starts. This is very similar to whitetail deer bucks that are searching for a doe in estrus. They run, chase, and search around until they find a hot doe.
We saw a lot of single to small schools of mature muttons searching during the same time they were spawning last year, for this we know there is a delay. One interesting observation I look for is the color of the fish. When they are searching, we notice a mix of coloration in their scales from green to pink. Greenbacks are fish that have a green tint to their upper scales. These greenback fish come from shallow water, where their food source has more presence of photosynthetic pigments like green chlorophyll. Fish that are all pink on the other hand, come from deep water where their food source consists more of shrimp or crustaceans. Think back to the mutton snapper you shoot or catch. In general, you find greenback fish shallow and all pink fish deep. This is important because in order for fish to spawn, they need to find each other in large numbers to be successful. So, weeks or even months leading up to a large spawn, you will see the shallow greenbacks mixed in with all the deep pink colored mutton snappers on the reef. All searching for other fish to spawn with. One last note is that searching fish are more curious and make more mistakes, just like a whitetail buck searching for a doe. For diving, they often swim right up to us and for fishing you often catch them on less than perfect bottom rigs. We have had small packs of searching muttons come up in our yellowtail slicks. Just the same with hunting, you might get a shot at a mature buck with his nose to the ground in the middle of the day.
What this all means is that the end of July and coming into August should be some very good deep reef and wreck hunting for mutton snapper. The spawn is definitely delayed from last summer and it will lead to some great fishing ahead! If you have noticed a lot of searching fish on your dives, then you can relate to this article. When the spawn begins, the searching will end. If you’re not seeing them running around, it’s because they are all spawning and you’re not in the right area! Just like sitting in the woods during the rut. The deer are breeding, bucks are fighting, and hunters are getting after it. During the rut however, just like spawning fish, you are either on them or you’re not seeing any.
I believe the greatest part of spear fishing or fishing is learning more about the fish and their environment. Just like hunting in the woods, you will develop a library of information on the species you are targeting. It takes years to learn, and the fishery is always changing, this is part of the fun for me. Last summer’s big spawn was June and July, for fun I scuba dove a spawning site off Islamorada, and it truly blew my mind. The water depth is irrelevant, but the majority of the water column in every direction I looked was beautiful mature breeding sized mutton snappers. These fish are 12-18 pounds with numerous fish larger and small mixed in. If you stumble upon a spawn, put your speargun or fishing rod down and enjoy it. This year we had a small April spawn off Islamorada and caught some great fish! Check your notes and start fishing your spots, it’s going to be some great fishing and diving to finish off the summer months! Enjoy every day out there, dive safe!
— Capt. Tony Young can be reached at
Forever Young Spearfishing in Islamorada, FL at 305-680-8879