Pacific red snapper in Los Cabos

How to recognize it

An oval snapper, red to pink with a silvery sheen, and reddish fins. The tail has a concave (slightly forked) edge, the soft part of the dorsal fin ends rounded and the anal fin ends in a point. The scale rows on the upper back run upward at an angle to the lateral line. Large adults develop a groove from the front of the eye to the nostrils and another behind the eye. Juveniles are red with a whitish chest and belly, a faint dark blotch on the lateral line above the front of the anal fin, and rows of small dark spots on the upper back.

Biology

The Pacific red snapper lives only in the eastern Pacific, from southern California and the central Gulf of California to Peru, including the Revillagigedo Islands. It stays near the bottom over rocky and sandy ground from close to shore down to about 100 m. It eats bony fish, crabs, shrimp, squid and octopus.

It grows slowly and lives a long time. Fish landed in La Paz and La Ventana bays measured 10 to 99 cm and were 1.5 to 31 years old; they mature at about 33 cm, around three and a half years. Near La Paz the main breeding activity runs from May to September, peaking in July, when a yearly growth ring forms in the fish's ear bones (otoliths).

How it's caught in Los Cabos

Around Los Cabos the huachinango is a bottom fish, caught over rocky reefs, ledges and sandy ground near structure. Local records include fish caught off Cabo San Lucas and Punta Palmilla. Commercial pangueros catch them on hand lines baited with squid or live pelagic red crab.

On a sport trip, drop cut squid, strips of fish or live bait to the bottom on a dropper rig and keep it close to the rocks. Like other snappers it bites and heads straight back into cover, so lift it away from the bottom quickly. Sport fishing is not allowed inside Cabo Pulmo National Park.

On the table

Excellent. FishBase notes it is sold fresh or frozen because of the excellent quality of its flesh, and in La Paz Bay it fetched one of the highest dock prices of any fish.

Rules, records & conservation

Don't confuse it with

The Colorado snapper (pargo colorado, Lutjanus colorado) is darker red all over, its tail edge is almost straight and the scale rows on its upper back run parallel to the lateral line, not at an angle. The spotted rose snapper (pargo lunarejo) has a black spot on the upper back below the dorsal fin. The yellow snapper (pargo amarillo) turns bright yellow to orange over most of the body. The Pacific dog snapper (pargo prieto) is copper to gray-brown with dark bars and rounded fins.

Questions

By Max VargasTop Anglers, Cabo San Lucas · international judge at big game fishing world championships · reviewed October 2026

Sources

• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: Lutjanus peru
• FishBase: Lutjanus peru
• FishBase: common names of Lutjanus peru
• IGFA world records: Pacific red snapper
• Díaz-Uribe et al. 2004, the huachinango fishery in the southwestern Gulf of California (Ciencias Marinas)
• Rocha-Olivares & Gómez-Muñoz 1993, otolith ages of huachinango in La Paz Bay (Ciencias Marinas)
• Vázquez-Hurtado et al. 2010, artisanal fisheries in La Paz Bay (Ciencias Marinas)
• Spanopoulos-Zarco et al. 2016, first maturity of captive-born huachinango (Lat. Am. J. Aquat. Res.)
• mexican-fish.com: Pacific red snapper
• Smithsonian Shorefishes of the Eastern Pacific: Colorado snapper
• NOM-017-PESC-1994, 2013 amendment (DOF)
• NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, 2019 annex (DOF)

Top illustration: Top Anglers. Photos: iNaturalist contributors, credited on each photo.