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The Whitebone Porgy fish identification, habitats, characteristics, Fishing methods
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Whitebone Porgy, Calamus leucosteus, also known as White Porgy, Silver Porgy, Silver Snapper, porgy is found from Cape Hatteras to Cape Canaveral, in the Florida coasts, the Bahamas and throughout the Gulf of Mexico.
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Description
The body is oval, flattened from side-to-side and is fairly deep. Their anterior teeth conical, the posterior nostril is slit-like rather than round. The species can be distinguished from two other frequently caught deepwater porgies, the red porgy and knobbed porgy. The former is predominantly pink; the latter has a very steep sloping forehead and cheeks that are speckled with bright blue and yellow. Although most members of the genus have 14 to 15 pectoral rays, the whitebone porgy has 16.
Color is silvery white, with irregular brown markings or spots of varying intensity on the sides, more like splotches than spots. The fins also often have some brown markings, and occasionally the sides bear brown crossbars. Blue lines may be apparent under the eye and on the head.
Whitebone porgies are slow-growing fish known to live as long as 12 years, reaching a length of 18 inches and weight of 5 pounds. This is the largest of the silvery whitish porgies at Gray's Reef.
Habitats
The whitebone porgy prefers habitats of mud or sandy bottoms and reefs in water ranging from 80-330 feet in depth. Usually they live in fairly deep water, 15-100 feet, over rocks, reefs or patchy bottom. Like other porgies, these are bottom-feeders. They use their powerful teeth to crush and eat snails, crabs, shrimp, worms, and sea urchins that live along rocks, sponges or corals.
Although more often they encountered in or near sponge-coral habitats at depths from 10 to 100 m over the sandy bottom of the open shelf habitat, indicative of isolated patch reefs. Whitebone porgy moved into warmer offshore waters during winter months, when inshore waters of the South Atlantic Bight have their annual minimum values.
Spawning
They spawn offshore in the late fall or winter, from April to August with peak spawning probably in May. Both sexes may mature at age one or two and females as small as 18 cm has hydrated eggs. Productiveness ranged from 30,000 to 1,500,000 eggs and generally increased with age, length and weight. Whitebone porgies are protogynous hermaphrodites, which mean that they all start life out as females, later turning into males as they grow and age.
Fishing Methods include Drifting or Still Fishing with light spinning and baitcasting tackle and multiplying reel, with live or dead shrimp and various cut baits. Whitebone porgies are the third or fourth most abundant species by weight in trawler landings. Red porgy and vermilion snapper are the most abundant trawl-caught commercial fish.
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