Red porgy
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-23
A large pink sparid of the eastern Atlantic islands and the Mediterranean, the quality shore and boat target on Canarian rock, and long-lived enough to be slow to replace.
Safety: injury while handling fish — minor injury.
Catching Red porgy
What FishingHQ holds on fishing for it. Each entry opens the record behind it.
- Where
- 6 places FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: recorded here · From the shore
The bocinegro is the fish a Canarian angler hopes for on the ground where the vieja is what they expect. It is a big, deep-bodied, rose-pink sparid with a silvery belly and a steep forehead, and it reaches a size — FishBase records 91 cm and 7.7 kg — that puts it in a different class from the everyday bream.
Its teeth tell the story of what it eats: large canines at the front of both jaws for seizing, grading back into blunt molars for crushing. It takes crab, shellfish, squid and fish baits over rock, reef edge and the broken ground between, from close in to well offshore, and in the islands it is caught from the rocks as well as from boats.
Two things about it deserve stating plainly. It lives a long time — up to twenty-six years on the FishBase record — and it changes sex, maturing as female and becoming male with age. A population of long-lived, sex-changing fish does not bounce back quickly from being fished hard, and red porgy stocks have been depleted in several parts of the species' very wide range. The IUCN assessment is Least Concern globally; that is a statement about the species and not about any particular island's ground.
How it is caught
- JiggingFrom a boat over the deeper reef and shelf ground.
- LedgeringCrab, shellfish, squid and fish baits over reef edge and broken ground.
- Reef spearfishingThe quality fish on the reef, and wary enough to be a real test.
Why these are here, and the sources (3)
What experienced anglers do — 3 connections
How FishingHQ classifies this: practitioner consensus. Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Jigging
Jigging is named by the Canary guidance as one of the two prevailing island techniques, worked over the rocky volcanic bottom and shallows for the sparids and the amberjacks together.
- Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Canary shore angling practice: the techniques and tackle used from rock, mole and beach, and the species each is used for.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Guías de zonas de pesca en Canarias — Tenerife, Gran Canaria y Lanzarote — GuíaCanarias (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The techniques named for Canarian shore fishing — rockfishing, jigging, light bottom fishing and squid jigs — and the species attached to them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Ledgering
Bocinegro is named in the Canary material as a quality target on the same rock the vieja is fished over, taken on larger baits fished on the bottom rather than on lures.
- Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Canary shore angling practice: the techniques and tackle used from rock, mole and beach, and the species each is used for.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Guías de zonas de pesca en Canarias — Tenerife, Gran Canaria y Lanzarote — GuíaCanarias (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The techniques named for Canarian shore fishing — rockfishing, jigging, light bottom fishing and squid jigs — and the species attached to them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Reef spearfishing
Named as spearfishing quarry over the reef edges of the islands. Its wariness in clear water is what the practitioner accounts emphasise rather than its size.
- Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Canary shore angling practice: the techniques and tackle used from rock, mole and beach, and the species each is used for.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Guías de zonas de pesca en Canarias — Tenerife, Gran Canaria y Lanzarote — GuíaCanarias (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The techniques named for Canarian shore fishing — rockfishing, jigging, light bottom fishing and squid jigs — and the species attached to them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where Red porgy is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
Canary Islands
3 documented places
El Confital
Rock platform
Recorded here
From the shore
The La Aldea coast
Cliff coast
Recorded here
From the shore
Ajuy
Cove
Recorded here
From the shore
Lanzarote
2 documented places
The Risco de Famara
Cliff coast
Recorded here
From the shore
El Golfo and Janubio
Rock platform
Recorded here
From the shore
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
Identification
No photograph of Red porgy has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Pagrus pagrus
- Family
- Sparidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Mediterranean, Western Europe, West Africa, North America, Caribbean
- Deep oval body, rose-pink above shading to silver below, with a convex head profile that steepens in front of the eye.
- Four large canine-like teeth in the upper jaw and six in the lower, grading back to molars in the rear third.
- Six or seven rows of scales on the cheek and a scaleless preopercle.
- Larger and heavier-headed than the common bream it is confused with, and lacking their bars and spots.
Size
- Typical
- 0.5–2 kg (1–4.4 lb)
- Large
- 3–5 kg (6.6–11 lb)
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 91 cm and 7.7 kg, and an age of 26 years
Lifecycle and reproduction
Long-lived and slow-growing: FishBase records a maximum age of 26 years. Benthopelagic over a depth range of 0 to 250 m, usually 10 to 80 m, so it is within reach of a deep shore mark as well as of a boat.
Protogynous hermaphrodite: fish mature as female and change to male with age and size. As with other sparids, this makes the largest fish disproportionately male and makes size-selective fishing a structural rather than merely a numerical pressure on the population.
Feeding and senses
Takes crustaceans, molluscs and small fish, seizing with the front canines and crushing with the molars behind. Hunts over rock, reef edge and adjacent broken ground rather than open sand.
A visual feeder in the clear water of the islands, hunting by sight around structure, and wary enough that fine traces and natural baits are the difference between catching it and catching the smaller fish that share its ground.
Through the year
Present through the year in the archipelago rather than seasonal. Larger fish tend to hold deeper, which is why the shore fishery for it concentrates on the marks where rock falls quickly away into depth rather than on shallow ground.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: Strait of Gibraltar to 15°N (rare southward 20°N), including Madeira and the Canary Islands; Mediterranean and northward to the British Isles. Western Atlantic: New York, USA and northern Gulf of Mexico to Argentina, including the continental coast of the Caribbean Sea
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
The quality sparid of Canarian rock fishing and a significant target across the eastern Atlantic islands, taken on crab, shellfish, squid and fish baits over rock and reef edge from shore and boat alike. Its significance in the islands is that it is the large fish reachable from ground an angler can stand on, on a coast where most of the big fishing is offshore.
Handling and returning
Powerful jaws with real canines at the front, and stiff dorsal spines. Use pliers, keep fingers clear of the mouth, and support a large fish horizontally rather than by the jaw.
Safety
Injury while handling fish — Minor injury
The front canines are large enough to puncture a finger, and the spiny dorsal is stiff and sharp on a fish of this depth of body.
What reduces it: Unhook with pliers, grip across the body with the dorsal folded, and support the weight of a big fish under the belly.
Where to go next
Where it lives
- Inshore groundThe mixed inshore bottom the boat fishery works.
- Rocky shores and reefsReef edge and the broken ground beside it rather than open sand.
Why these are here, and the sources (2)
Backed by research — 2 connections
How FishingHQ classifies this: scientific evidence. Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Inshore ground
Its usual 10 to 80 m band is inshore ground rather than deep water, which is why the same species is taken from the rocks and from a small boat over the same coast.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Pagrus pagrus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Rocky shores and reefs
Pagrus pagrus is recorded as benthopelagic from the surface to 250 m, usually 10 to 80 m, over hard and mixed ground — which is what puts it within reach of a shore mark where rock falls quickly into depth.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Pagrus pagrus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Told apart from
Why these are here, and the sources (1)
What experienced anglers do — 1 connection
How FishingHQ classifies this: practitioner consensus. Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Common dentex
Canarian sources use overlapping vernacular for the large sparids, which is exactly why the catalogue holds them as separate records: a bocinegro is not a dentón, the two are fished on the same marks, and a name that covers both cannot support a claim about either.
- Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Canary shore angling practice: the techniques and tackle used from rock, mole and beach, and the species each is used for.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Guías de zonas de pesca en Canarias — Tenerife, Gran Canaria y Lanzarote — GuíaCanarias (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The techniques named for Canarian shore fishing — rockfishing, jigging, light bottom fishing and squid jigs — and the species attached to them.States this directlyPassage read and verified
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
Sources for this page
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Pagrus pagrus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Pagrus pagrus, assessed 17 August 2009.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Canary Islands regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Which species Canary shore anglers target from rock, mole and beach, with the techniques and baits the Spanish-language regional guidance describes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.