A Quest for Long Island Tropical Strays!

The cool and unique phenom of Long Island tropical strays - or ! We found many of these gulf stream orphans on a recent trip including Red, Snowy, Scamp and Gag Grouper, Angelfish, American Eels, Atlantic Bluespotted Cornetfish and tons more! ALL fish were released unharmed.
My iNaturalist Observations from this trip:
tinyurl.com/mu...

[@lilyd8908]

Did not know about tropical strays! Very cool!

[@FishGuyPhotos]

Goof stuff! Glad you had a successful trip.

[@bestmusic9879]

one of my fishing channels has been catching tropical fish and sharing on his channel, BSprex fishing even grouper...thanks for sharing

[@xlandscaper]

I’ve dove that bridge 100times. Gotta be in the water 15 minutes before slack, vis is usually 20-30’ and loads of tropicals around October.

[@CALEB-vr8lh]

How do they get up here, and how come we don’t catch the big ones if they are born here

[@owenridgen]

Tropical strays aren't born in the area, they are born in areas to the south, like off the Florida Coast and in the Caribbean. The young are caught up in the Gulf Stream, an ocean current after being born in the summer, which carries them north in the fall. Most die in the winter before growing to adult size, but a few, like the Snowy Grouper shown in the video, survive as big adults in deep undersea canyons off Montauk.