When I was guiding on the flats up in Key West, there was one
species that was more difficult to hook on fly than both
bonefish and permit combined, and that was the mutton snapper.
Like a lot of other fish, they were easy to catch in the deeper
water with live bait, but in the shallows they were the rarest
of the rare.
For the majority of non-saltwater anglers, the mutton snapper is
best known as a $24.95 entrée on the specials menu, and for good
reason. They are easily one of the most delicious fish that
swims in the ocean, with perfect white fillets that have an
unbelievably firm sweetness to them when lightly grilled.
As fantastic as they are on the plate, they’re even more
stunning in the water. Growing up to twenty pounds, muttons are
easily the most beautiful of all the snapper species, none of
which are the least bit homely. Their colors are something that
can only be duplicated by the most talented of artists. Photos
rarely do them justice. Their bodies are a metallic combination
of yellow, gold, and bronze, with bright pink fins and neon blue
facial highlights thrown in for good measure. As a living
aquatic sculpture, mutton snapper have no equals.
All of that physical perfection comes with an angling price, and
that price is the extreme difficulty to fool them with a fly in
the shallows. Just like the permit, they’re at home in the
deeper water but come up to the flats on a quest for live crabs.
This is one more reason that the classic Merkin is the best all
around shallow water pattern. Unlike the permit, mutton snapper
will also eat almost anything they can fit down their throats,
so shrimp and bait fish flies work well, too. But this doesn’t
mean that they’re mindless eaters. Since they’re designed for
the deeper waters, hunting food on the flats probably leaves
them feeling very exposed. One thing I’ve learned about chasing
mutton snapper is that when you can see them, they can
definitely see you.
As
I mentioned earlier, on the flats off Key West, muttons were as
scarce as sunken treasure, and the reason for that was
over-fishing. Very few legal size snapper caught anywhere in the
Keys are ever released. Several years ago the offshore and light
tackle guides discovered the springtime spawning pattern of this
species and started hammering them without mercy. I remember
spending one seasick April night on my friend’s thirty foot
Chris Craft pulling up nearly 200 pounds of muttons off the reef
at the Sand Key lighthouse. It was perfectly legal and we were
strictly following the size and bag limits for this species at
the time, but we weren’t the only boat out there. We all ate
well that week but I never associated what we were doing with
the severe lack of these fish on the flats.
For Vieques, with its total absence of GPS guided boats with
sonar powered fish-finders, mutton snapper are common in both
the deep and shallow waters. They’re nowhere near as abundant on
the flats as bonefish but they’re almost an everyday sight.
Seeing their bright pink and orange tail break the surface is
one of the most heart racing moments on the water down here.
Since muttons are also a territorial species, I have a few spots
in here on the island that I can count on for finding a resident
fish basking under the surface a few feet from his hole in the
mangrove roots. Catching that fish is a different story
altogether.
Spotting a mutton snapper on the flats means the fish has also
spotted the boat, so casting a fly to one has to be done quickly
and without a lot of gymnastics. Waving an arm is usually enough
to send the fish running for cover. We’ve been lucky on several
mornings this year and hooked some big muttons feeding on the
deeper flats in Ensenada Honda. A couple of these snapper were
pushing ten pounds and pulled harder than any bonefish could,
running the fly line well into the backing.
One of my anglers, a saltwater veteran with several permit on
fly under his belt, commented that the seven pound mutton we had
just landed was the most beautiful fish he’d ever seen. I
couldn’t really disagree. And unlike my Florida days, I sent
this one back into the water.
Capt. Gregg McKee,
WildFly Charters
