Name That Fish!
By Joe Malat

At right: Depending on the size, bluefish are known as Taylors, choppers, snappers, or jumbos. Joe Malat photo

In the pre-dawn darkness, several anglers shuffled on to the fishing pier. Four of them, one local and three visitors to the Outer Banks, settled within earshot of each other, and one-by-one began rigging up tackle. “How’d y’all do yesterday?” one of them said to the group.

“Not bad,” responded the angler from Delaware. “I had some nice kingies,” he replied. The others were perplexed, not sure of the species. “You know, kingfish,” he added.

“That’s pretty good, but me and my brother caught enough whiting to cook up a mess for dinner,” responded another. “At home in Georgia we don’t usually catch ‘em that big,” he offered. The other fishermen weren’t exactly sure what kind of fish he was talking about, but no one offered a challenge.

“I didn’t catch many fish, just a few small blues and a throwback flounder but I had a roundhead that must have weighed two pounds,” the visitor from Virginia said proudly. Again, no response from the group.

While the others were rigging and talking, the local from Kitty Hawk baited his hooks with bloodworms and made a cast into the breaking surf. His rod bent over immediately.

“There he is!” he hollered as he set the hook and soon swung a nice fish over the pier rails. As the silvery fish flopped on the deck, the other three fishermen, almost in unison said, “That’s it, that’s what I caught yesterday!”

The North Carolina angler walked over to pick up his fish from the deck and said, “Boys, that’s what we call a sea mullet!”

They were all correct. Each had a different, regional name for the same species of fish. Technically known as kingfish, these long, slender bottom feeders have many aliases. So do many other fish. Some are regional names, others are nicknames, but these names can be confusing to a rookie angler, or someone who might be new to an area.

For example, what’s a squeteague, pronounced “skweteeg”? How about an AJ? Look for the answers at the end of this column.

Bluefish are unique, not related to any other species, and along the Outer Banks they average a couple pounds, but in the heyday of the big bluefish some of the largest ones topped 20 pounds. The big blues are called jumbos, some call them choppers, and we haven’t seen great numbers of them along the Tarheel coast for some time. Little bluefish are often called snappers, tailors, or taylors. I’ve seen it spelled both ways, and have no idea where that name came from.

False albacore are fondly known as albies, Alberts, or Fat Alberts. Don’t ask me about that one, either. There’s a distinct difference between false albacore and “true” albacore. Both are tunas and both are excellent sport fish, but the correct name for the albies we catch along the Outer Banks is little tunny and they are found primarily in nearshore waters. The dark red and strong tasting meat is less than desirable. True albacore are highly prized and are the albacore tuna that we see canned in the grocery store.

On most seafood restaurant menus dolphin are frequently referred to by their Hawaiian name, “mahi-mahi”, probably to reassure diners that they are not enjoying one of Flipper’s cousins baked, broiled, fried or blackened.

But anglers also have different names for them. “Gaffers” are big dolphin, the ones that are so big that a gaff is needed to bring them in the boat. Smaller sized dolphin are called “bailers” because they can easily be pulled out of the water and over the side of the boat. When you hear a charter boat mate say “we bailed dolphin” that means his party caught one after another of the smaller size fish, which is not uncommon when a school of them is located.

When that same charter boat mate boasts of a good catch of “meatfish,” he is usually referring to tuna, dolphin, wahoo, or king mackerel. Usually the word applies to any fish that ends up in the cooler.

Billfish, such as white and blue marlin and sailfish, are the other side of the offshore quarry, and most of them are released. A “grander” is a blue marlin that weighs more than a thousand pounds.

What’s a lemonfish, ling, cabio, or crabeater? If you guessed cobia, you’re right. I have an idea where the last nickname originated, but couldn’t even venture a guess for the others.

North Carolina’s official salt water state fish is the red drum, but Virginians call them channel bass. Folks from Florida, Georgia and South Carolina call them redfish, but they are also known as spottail bass. In North Carolina we call the little ones puppy drum, medium-sized reds are referred to as yearlings. Some anglers call the big fish, over forty pounds, old drum. Whatever the name, they are a wonderful and exciting fish to catch!

Croakers are a member of the same family that includes the drums and trouts. My Dad, who grew up fishing in the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay, always called them hardheads.

Anyone who guessed right on the first question probably has some northern roots, very likely in Rhode Island. Squeteague is a Native American name for gray trout, and I’ve only heard New England anglers use the word. Gray trout are also called weakfish, because of the weak mouth tissue that requires the use of a landing net to handle the big ones, which are also known as tiderunners.

AJ is a concise, abbreviated nickname for amberjack.

What about the flatfish we see in the waters of the Outer Banks? Any one that you catch could be a summer flounder, a southern flounder, or rarely a Gulf flounder. Most of the flatties we catch along the Outer Banks are summer flounder, called a fluke by our northern fishing buddies. The really big ones are called “doormats”, an appropriate description if I ever did hear one.

I haven’t had much first hand experience with doormats, and if I ever catch a doormat it will be a fluke in more ways than one.