Trade pigfish for trout.

If Michael McMaster has things his way, trout fishermen won’t have to worry about catching pigfish in summer. They’ll be able to buy all they need at bait and tackle shops, thanks to innovative aquaculture.

McMaster is president of Mariculture Technologies International (MTI). One of his company’s projects concerns the spawning and raising of pigfish in small ponds for commercial use. Pigfish, members of the grunt family (Orthopristis chrysoptera), are one of the best baits for big seatrout in summer. That’s no secret—and yet it is. Because pigfish are so effective, anglers who are proficient with their use are, for the most part, reluctant to share where they get their baits, how they catch them, and in turn, the techniques they employ to catch big trout.

I called McMaster and was able to wrangle a tour of MTI’s 10-acre facility in Oak Hill, near the north end of the Indian River Lagoon in East Central Florida. This is one of the areas where gator trout thrive. It makes good business sense to raise pigfish near the waters where demand for them will be greatest.

McMaster showed me a large, round tank where he kept his “alpha spawners,” pigfish that had been culled and kept in a separate tank because they grew significantly faster and stronger than the others. The rest had been released into an on-site pond where an orange grove once stood. These genetically superior pigfish, in turn, had a greater likelihood of producing other “alpha spawners” and again, the best-of-the-best would be segregated into yet another tank He hopes these third-generation fish will produce offspring that can be distributed commercially.

Using a dip net, McMaster netted a few pigfish and showed them to me. They were large, about 7 inches long, and hyperactive compared to other species of fish upon which he was conducting research at his facility. My first thought was that they needed a good dose of Ritalin to calm them down. McMaster said that because pigfish were noticeably more active than pinfish, grunts and croakers, it probably served to draw the attention of spotted seatrout and other nearby predators. He surmises that their common name, “pigfish,” probably comes from the grunting noises they make. These sounds, he believes, are what draw trout and other predators from afar to grab an easy meal. He added that juveniles three to four inches long also have smoother fins than pinfish, croakers and other grunts, and that seatrout probably like that as well.

At present, McMaster is working toward spawning successive generations of pigfish, determining which months of the year will have the greatest demand, ascertaining how many pigfish need to be produced and estimating market demand. He’s confident these issues can be resolved in the near future, but until they are, livebait fishermen will have to continue paying premium prices for pigfish that have been captured in traps, or they will have to catch their own.

Richard Patten lives in East Central Florida and has fished in the Sebastian area using pigfish for almost 40 years. He catches his pigfish in traps. “I recall when they were a nickel apiece,” he began. “They were the best summer bait you could get your hands on back then and they still are.”

I inquired why he thought they were such good bait and he didn’t hesitate.

“Trout recognize the grunting sounds pigfish make and if they can hear it, they’ll try and find the pigfish. They will move long distances when they know a meal like that waits for them.”

With the passage of time, Patten found he was using more and more pigfish and as their price began to rise, he turned to trapping his own.

“You want to bait your trap with crushed crab and set it in a sandspot near grass. In early summer, I set my traps in two or three feet of water, but I eventually have them about five feet deep as the pigfish grow larger and move deeper by late summer.”

He cautioned, “Although the pigfish live in the grass, don’t put your traps there or the grass will block the holes and you won’t get as many.”

I asked Patten why he considered pigfish to be a summer bait and he explained, “Pigfish spawn in spring and by late May, most are still under two inches. By midsummer, however, they get to be about three inches, a perfect size for medium and larger trout. As they continue to grow on into late summer, they become more of a big trout bait.” With the hint of a knowing smile, he added, “And bull redfish and big snook will feed on them as the pigfish get even larger in September and October. After that, they move out to sea.”