Top target

Pacific Red Snapper

Huachinango del Pacífico

Lutjanus peru · Lutjanidae

Category: Snapper & Pargo
Found in: Sea of Cortez, Pacific Mainland
IUCN status: Least Concern
Mexico fish counts: 369 counted

About Pacific Red Snapper in Mexico

How to recognize it

A bright rose-red to pinkish snapper with silvery-pink lower sides and fins tinged red. The eye is large and reddish, the snout fairly pointed and the tail shallowly forked. Unlike the shallower pargos of the Mexican Pacific, it lacks dark bars or a black spot, which helps separate it from the spotted rose snapper (flamenco). It is a different species from the Gulf of Mexico red snapper, even though both are sold as huachinango.

Where and when in Mexico

Huachinango del Pacífico lives over rocky and mixed bottom in deeper water, generally from a few dozen to well over a hundred meters, throughout the Sea of Cortez and along the mainland coast from Sinaloa and Nayarit down past Puerto Vallarta. In Mexico Fish Reports' fish counts, most came from San Felipe boats between 2006 and 2009, with smaller numbers from Cabo San Lucas over the years. Fish are caught year-round, with winter and spring often productive in the Sea of Cortez. Most weigh 2–8 pounds.

How it's fished

Huachinango is a bottom-fishing target. Dropper-loop rigs baited with squid, cut mackerel or sardina are sent down to rocky high spots, and yo-yo jigs or slow-pitch jigs fished near the bottom also take them. The fish often come up in groups once a productive spot is found, mixed with other reef species.