Tricky Triggerfish: Fun to Catch and Great to Eat

They lack the size and fight of big amberjack, the status of red snapper or the speed of king mackerel. Yet most anglers these days celebrate bringing a good-sized gray triggerfish into the boat.

And why not? Triggers have become widely recognized for their succulent, white fillets. Sure, it can be a bit of a chore to get to that meat, through triggers’ thick, leathery tough skin, but most anglers have learned how to do it efficiently. And triggers are, well... fish. That is to say, most fishermen out on a reef are after fish, and a trigger adds another species to a boat’s catch.

Triggerfish have been important to Florida’s recreational fishery for a long time. Some old-timers can still remember back to the days when triggerfish weren’t a particularly desirable species. Back in the ‘60s, says renowned Miami charter legend, Capt. Bouncer Smith, “We generally avoided gray triggers.” For the most part, he says, “Nobody in my crowd ever wanted them.

“Only Capt. Sonny Gregory appreciated their value. He collected them from boats on the dock and sold them,” Smith says.

But attitudes toward triggers are far different these days, on both sides of Florida. Triggers have been important to sport fishermen for decades, says Tim Broom in Destin, vice-president of Half Hitch Tackle, and not just off the state’s Panhandle but for coastal fisheries off all northern Gulf states.

FLORIDA REGULATIONS

• Limited in the Gulf, Generous in the Atlantic.

Those regulations, however, for the main trigger species—Balistes capriscus, the gray triggerfish—have in recent years been dramatically different for the Atlantic vs. the Gulf.

In Atlantic waters off Florida, the relatively generous federal and state regulations allow an angler to keep 10 gray triggerfish per day, year-round, with at least a 12-inch fork length. Compare that to the Gulf side, where the daily limit is a mere one fish and it must be at least 15 inches at the fork. The Gulf season runs eight months: March through May and August through December.

Yet according to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council site, gray triggers in the Gulf are neither overfished nor undergoing overfishing. Puzzled, I asked Carrie Simmons, a biologist and the Gulf Council’s executive director, why the regulations for species are so stingy.

“In 2018,” she explained, “the Gulf gray triggerfish stock was declared overfished and undergoing overfishing.” So a nine-year rebuilding plan was implemented. Biologists are waiting for the new stock assessment—hopefully in 2025—to see if the stock is in fact rebuilt. (Those data have been slow in coming because triggerfish otoliths—“ear bones”—by which most species are aged proved very fragile in triggers, so a method for aging using the fishes’ spine had to be developed.)

Gulf anglers may well envy their Atlantic counterparts’ 12-inch minimum. “My biggest complaint [about the regs] is that 15-inch minimum,” Broom says. It can be hard to get through the smaller ones for a keeper: “Thirteen to 14 inches seems more reasonable.”

And selectively fishing for larger triggers isn’t necessarily easy. “With most other fish,” Broom says, “bigger baits with bigger hooks can target bigger fish. But on a trigger, even a big one of, say, 22 to 24 inches, its mouth isn’t commensurately larger than smaller triggers.”

Broom suggests that the odds for bigger triggers relates directly to the distance one fishes from the pass, where fishing pressure is less, whether well offshore or closer in but farther east or west.

On the Atlantic side, Capt. Joey Alvarez, with Sea Leveler Sport Fishing Charters in Port Canaveral, is all about triggers. He appreciates the fact that they’re “one of the species we can still keep,” with generous limits and a year-round season. Alvarez, like many coastal skippers and anglers on both sides of the state, catches triggers that feed amongst schools of vermilion snapper (beeliners in the Atlantic; mingo snapper in the Gulf). Where you catch one species, you’ll generally find the other.

TRIGGER TRICKS

Anglers widely target both types of fish using two-hook dropper-loop (“chicken”) rigs. Alvarez fishes a 2/0 to 3/0 3x-strong J-hook. He notes that triggers’ powerful jaws can bend or even break weaker hooks. On the Gulf, Broom also fishes a two-hook dropper rig. He suggests a bead rig such as that used in commercial snapper fishing, which particularly in deeper water, won’t spin up your line as it drops as a basic rig might. “And it’s really important that the line [the loop] go through the eye correctly, which means front to back,” Broom says.

While nearly any small piece of bait can do the job, experts agree that some work more effectively than others. Small strips of squids or chunks of bonito (little tunny) probably enjoy the most widespread popularity among anglers (for both triggers and snapper). Both are tough and less easily pulled off the book than, for example, pieces of sardine or herring. A third, tough option in some areas is Fishbites, artificially scented synthetic baits. Best of all are prepared chunks of bonito or skipjack.

A gray triggerfish’s body is rigid, encased in thick skin resembling an exoskeleton, and it relies primarily on its tail and second dorsal and anal fins for locomotion, and not its entire body as most fish. Yet, when hooked, they’re not pushovers. “I’d compare their fight to that of a red snapper,” says Alvarez, “pound for pound.” Accordingly, he prefers his anglers use 50- to 60-pound braid when chicken rigging. For one thing, triggers can rock up an angler. (They’re known to seek shelter in a narrow crevice if threatened.) For another, it’s not unusual to hook scamps, red grouper or red snapper when chicken rigging. Also, currents may necessitate 16 to 20 ounces of lead.

When angler skill and preference and conditions allow, “If you can use light tackle for triggers, they fight great,” says Smith. But not many anglers hook ’em on light line, “and people miss a good thing with a fun fight. Capt. Abie Raymond fishes light tackle on the reefs off Miami’s Haulover Inlet, and during a half-day they’ll catch and release triggers as well as small yellowtail, mutton snappers, jacks and more,” —and, Smith says, end up with plenty of fillets for dinner.

No matter what tackle anglers use, most hope the end result will be a keeper, given widespread agreement that mild, white gray trigger fillets are second to no fish for edibility. Most captains know that triggers are one of the best-eating fish, Alvarez says, and many anglers have triggers high on their wish list for dinner. The fact that trigger fillets are not as readily available at seafood markets as are any species, adds to their desirability.

Of course to eat ’em, you have to clean ’em. That can be a “a pain,” acknowledges Alvarez. Smith says that even today some charter crews aren’t crazy about filleting triggers. Still, Alvarez says, “Once you learn how, it’s pretty easy.” Since a video is worth a thousand words, consider simply searching videos online for “how to clean a triggerfish,” and take a look at couple examples.

Many years ago, when friends joined me driving to Baja with a cartopper, we discovered both the succulent flavor of fresh triggerfish (ubiquitous and easy to catch) and how to prepare them without breaking out a fillet knife. We’d build a good beach fire, and when it had burnt down to hot coals, throw whole triggers wrapped in aluminum foil on the coals for 10 minutes or so, then flip them over for another 10 minutes. When we cracked them open to reveal the steaming white meat, we had some of the tastiest fish I’ve enjoyed to this day.

Federal and state regs require anglers fishing reefs to have and use a venting tool or descending device. For triggerfish caught in moderately deep water, that’s a good thing, since like all fish with swim or air bladders, they’re subject to barotrauma. That won’t be revealed by the inverted gas-filled stomach sticking from their mouth that barotraumatized fish display, but by a noticeably expanded and unusually hard belly.

Those suffering this condition will simply float away, unable to return to depths. But unlike bright-red snapper, gray triggerfish are hard to see and anglers may not be aware they didn’t soon recover.

Broom says he’s found venting triggers to be a tricky proposition. Anglers may be better off using a descending device. Visit returnemright.org for details.

Florida Triggerfish Trio

Gray Triggerfish (Balistes capriscus)

Whenever we talk about “triggerfish” in Florida, most of the time we mean the gray trigger. True to its name, it’s a drab gray shade, unlike many triggerfishes which are in many cases decked out in brilliant hues. The IGFA all-tackle weight record is 13 pounds, 9 ounces caught off Murrell’s Inlet, South Carolina, in 1989.

The gray is common in the western Atlantic and around all of Florida, though its range extends to the eastern Atlantic. As noted in the main text, triggers may be caught year-round in Atlantic waters, and anglers may keep up to 10 triggers at least 12 inches in a day. In the Gulf of Mexico there are seasonal restrictions with a 15-inch minimum for one fish per day; the 2025 Gulf season opens March 1.

Ocean Triggerfish (Canthidermis sufflamen)

Also known by anglers as the ocean tally, this species is also basically gray in color, but a black blotch at the base of each pectoral fin helps distinguish it from the gray. Tallys are more pelagic in nature, often found in deep, open water. Like other triggers, they’re good eating. A 13-pound, 8-ounce ocean trigger, caught in 1995 off Pompano Beach, Florida, holds the world record by weight. Apparently, management concerns are minimal for this species; it is unregulated, and there are no catch restrictions in Florida waters.

Queen Triggerfish (Balistes vetula)

Emblazoned in colors befitting royalty, the queen trigger is another reef-dwelling fish of the western Atlantic. The IGFA all-tackle weight record, caught in 2009 off Cancun, Mexico, weighed 14 pounds, 3 ounces. While other states are less restrictive than Florida, queen triggers in Florida state and federal waters may not be harvested (bag limit = zero). Hooking a queen trigger is not unusual, given their aggressive nature.

Kimchi’d Trigger Bait




“The top-of-the-line bait for triggers and vermilions,” says Tim Broom at Destin’s Half Hitch Tackle, “has been in use for decades. To make it, fillet out and cut into bite-size chunks of bonito—or skipjack or even ladyfish.” Broom says to then layer the chunks in a five-gallon bucket, with alternating bait and rock salt layers. “Then seal the lid and let it sit for at least two months. Kind of like making kimchi.” When you open it back up, “it will smell horrific, but it really attracts triggers and vermilions, and [thanks to the salt] it’s very tough. It’s really old school, but some top anglers still do this,” Broom adds. “They just don’t advertise it.”

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• This article was featured in the March 2025 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe

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