As the seething heat of July pours down on the waters of the Jersey shoreline, savvy hard structure enthusiasts have visions of tasty grey triggerfish on the grill with a bit of their favorite seasoning dancing through their salty heads.

For many years this fish was considered a nuisance to anglers, stealing baits with numerous hits and bringing up many empty hooks that proved too big for this species and its small- yet-toothy jaws. Some call these fish exotics due to their tropical appearance, but gray triggerfish can be found every year from the Gulf of Mexico to Nova Scotia. From a small group of wreck veterans who relied on charts, LORAN coordinates and shoreline markers we now have come to realize today that this is one of the very best eating fish that migrates to our inshore grounds.

Along with its great taste comes a fun fight on light tackle, often taking our light spinning gear right to the brink of explosion. Don’t be fooled by its clumsy appearance; nature has designed this intelligent water dynamic eating machine with a few good weapons, the most noticeable being its “horn,” or if you’re a geek like me, it’s dorsal spine. This spine is used mainly for defense against predators or to anchor inside a hole in order to hide or guard its spawning nest. Its main predators include tuna, dolphin (mahi-mahi), sharks, marlin and sailfish, especially when the fish is in its juvenile phases. Second is a small yet powerful mouth filled with incisor-like teeth. These teeth allow the trigger to chew through its favorite hard-shelled foods like crab, mollusks, sand dollars, urchins, razor mussels and clams. Third is a bad attitude. This is a very aggressive fish known to be one of the more intelligent fish in our waters. During spawning season from July to August in New Jersey, the adults will patrol and guard the spawning nest attacking anything, including a diver, if they get too close on the wrong day. The nickname “saltwater piranha” isn’t too far off. Fourth is the fish’s tough leather-like skin protecting the fish against predators as well as filet knives.

Recent studies on the fish noted a very intelligent and unique feeding habit the triggerfish has developed. This diurnal predator will move away from the hard structure in which it resides, searching the soft bottom for buried invertebrates in an upright position. When it finds its prey the fish will actually blow water into the sand exposing the hiding prey. It will then blow more water, flipping the prey over and exposing its soft underside. At that point the trigger will go into an all out attack shredding the prey in a few short moments. This is the perfect way to avoid the spinney back of an urchin, the claw of a lady crab or the natural defenses of many other invertebrates in the fish’s diet.

There are a few good ways to catch these “bait nabbers.” If you’re an experienced diver, its easy: dive on a wreck, bring your favorite spear gun, go all Dirty Harry, and load the feed bag. For those of us who can’t get to them it’s best to bring them to us by chumming them off the structure. A good clam log or squid log in a basket sunk up-current from where you’re set (about ten to fifteen feet down and as far up current from the structure as you can get it) will go a long way in getting the triggers on the feed right under your boat. One can use a very wide variety of baits for these fish including almost any strip bait, clam, squid, and almost any kind of crab including sand fleas or mole crabs. Those are the little crabs you dug up as a kid playing on the beach. Yes Dad, you can now kill two birds with one stone!

The most important thing you need are small #1 or #2 sharp hooks to penetrate that bony jaw and stay set. If you are experienced enough to tie rigs, use a dropper rig like you would for tog, adjusting the hook size to a 1 or 2, but bring the hook up about five inches more than you normally would for a tog rig. Triggerfish will hover on a rig and even use your line as leverage, causing the angler to swing away and come up empty, hence the high hook on your dropper rig. If you’re feeling good and want to try for the two run shot, you can tie a double dropper or even a free floating snafu rig. A snafu rig is basically a dropper rig with the loop cut in half so you can tie two hooks down. This rig is good for free lining for “double headers” without weight, especially when they are eating from your chum slick right in the current liege that your anchored boat is causing. The easiest thing you can do is go to your local bait and tackle shop and find some porgy rigs. They work just fine for triggerfish as well as porgy and sea bass. Tasty by- catch when on the hunt for triggers!

You can find these fish on almost any hard structure from the back bays during late summer and early fall to the canyons year round and everywhere in-between. One just needs to keep in mind what they eat when looking for them and the fact that they are a hard- structure-oriented fish and you can find them.

From my experience, in my local waters, the bigger fish weighing between four and five pounds are usually found in the back bays. These fish are a bit more solitary, not to say that an angler can’t catch multiple fish, but we usually don’t get the fish in numbers like we do on the inshore ocean fishing grounds. The trade off being many smaller aquarium sized fish you can pull from structure in the ocean. One can have days of catching well over fifty and even hundreds of triggerfish if they get to the right place at the right time.

After you catch them, you will need to filet out your meat. As with any fish, a sharp knife and a careful hand will be helpful. The best way to go about this is by putting an incision right below the fishes dorsal spine, cutting straight through to the dorsal fin. Then take your knife through the entire filet down the body of the fish to the tail. Next, take your knife back to the starting incision and cut upward through the underside of the skin to finish your cut. The meat has a very white color, lemony smell, fine texture and a wonderful light eating taste that is perfect for fish tacos and salads. You can take the skin off if you desire, but we prefer to grill these fish with the skin on. The fat layer between the leather-like skin and the meat makes it the perfect buffer between your grill flame and the tasty prize. Just a few minutes and a little seasoning and you are good to eat away.

These fish are not regulated, giving many New Jersey anglers a much needed sigh of relief from the battles that are taking place over almost all of our other species. Just remember that all fish in New Jersey were once in the same position as the triggerfish in the eyes of the regulation makers and freezer burnt meat of any kind doesn’t taste very good. Let’s see the New Jersey state record of five pounds, eleven ounces go down this year! Good luck and Tight lines! •