Choffer -- real name?

[KansaiKitsune]

Around Florida, there's a kind of baitfish which hangs around marinas and docks that we Southern folk call choffer. They're good baitfish. However, I've never seen "choffer" referred to in any encyclopedia or scientific article. So enlighten a Southern son of a fisherman: what's the ACTUAL name of the fish that we call choffer?

 

[justleesa]

Do you have a picture?

 

[Walter]

I've never heard of it.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Been around fish & fishermen in Lower Alabama all my life & never heard the term... you sure it ain't some Yankee word a Snowbird brought down there?
One picture... one picture would solve the mystery...
Rick

 

[captfrankie]

Hello All, This is my first post on your forum, for that matter the first thread that I read on your forum. I find it very interesting the a little fish that I grewup with and some times referred to as a "Saltwater Bream" and even at times did have for dinner. Would be the topic of this highly informed group.

KansaiKitsune did you ever get an answer to your question. Or are we to just continue calling this little respected member the marina and grass flats family by the name that I grew up knowing him by. Having lived on and around Choctawhatchee Bay all of my life. Having worked on the Party Boats in Destin from the age of 10, going on to Commercial Fish, Gill net fish when that was legal often catching hundreds of them a night.

Yes I think we should just get those that write the books to recognize our little friend by the name you and I know him by. "CHOFFER". I do not like the often accepted label of "Pen Fish" which is the result of his many sharp fins.

Any way if there is an official name I would like to hear it, but they will always be choffers to me.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Hello All, This is my first post on your forum, ...Yes I think we should just get those that write the books to recognize our little friend by the name you and I know him by. "CHOFFER". I do not like the often accepted label of "Pen Fish" which is the result of his many sharp fins.

OOoohhhhh.... you mean the common little porgy we call the "pinfish."
Lagodon rhomboides

That "Choffer" must be a very limited regional moniker around Panama City that ends somewhere between Destin & Pensacola.
Lagodon rhomboides, that's the guy.
Every little boy's first panfish... right tasty, actually, and real good bait on the snapper banks.
Only took us seven months to figure it out.
Rick

 

[SteveML]

In Key West we called them "pin fish". In Panama City we called them "choffers" not to be confused with crockers.