Lionfish Hunting: 7 Tips to Find Your Prey

Lionfish hunters take notice: knowing how to find lionfish is crucial to the hunt. These killer tips will help you refine your skills and train your eyes!

How to Find Lionfish While Scuba Diving

By now in our lionfish hunting series you’ve selected your hunting location and you’ve decided on a dive site; now, it’s time to start your hunt. Descend below and follow these tips on how to find lionfish.

By the end of this article, you’ll understand how to find lionfish and what to look for to find more of them while hunting.

Lionfish Hunting: Tips on How to Find Lionfish

1. Move slow and in control

This is the one that seems to be the most difficult for new hunters but it’s as crucial as any: go slow. Not only will you conserve your air, giving you more bottom time, you also won’t incidentally pass over any lionfish.

I know, it’s tempting to zoom along to cover vast swaths of area. But believe me, you’ll be amazed at how many more lionfish you’ll notice if you just take things slow.

2. Keep your head on swivel

While traveling slow and in control, be sure to keep your head on swivel – a term my old football coach used to tell me during high school. I guess it applies here, too.

What does that even mean though? Scan the area thoroughly!

If you’re diving along a ledge, like Hammerhead Reef in Fort Lauderdale, scan the top, bottom, underneath, and along the sides to ensure you’re leaving no stone unturned (figuratively speaking, of course) . You’d be shocked to see what little cracks and crevices lionfish will find themselves in.

3. Look for the white tips, fins, and spines

What’s intended to be a defense mechanism for natural predators (lionfish spread their fins to give the appearance of a lion’s mane to scare away even the meanest of ocean predators) happens to be their giveaway to humans.

White tips from lionfish fins and spines can be spotted from afar – giving you a better chance at finding them if they happen to be hiding somewhere. Once you’ve seen a few of the white tips, they tend to stick out in your mind (no pun intended).

4. Hunt at dawn and dusk

University of Miami marine scientist, Laura Palomino, says “lionfish are easier to spot at dawn and dusk because that’s when they’re actively swimming and hunting. This behavior is known as being crepuscular.”

This obviously isn’t feasible for everyone to dive during these hours. I mean, it’s not very likely your local dive shop is heading out at 6 AM. But if you do have the opportunity, surely you’ll increase your likelihood of removing more lionfish if you hunt at sunrise or sunset.

Here in South Florida, we have access to some of the best beach diving in the US – always giving divers an opportunity to hunt at sunrise or sunset. Visit the area and give it a shot some time!

5. Look under ledges

Unfortunately, the sun is up and lionfish aren’t actively feeding anymore. How do you find them now?

On natural coral reefs, most of the marine life gravitates towards ledges – and lionfish are no different. After all, that’s where all the food is!

During the day, we seem to find the most lionfish under ledges, inside cracks, and deep within crevices. In fact, some times this is the only place we can find them.

6. Visit artificial reefs

Artificial reefs are a great means to attract loads of marine life where none previously were – when implemented correctly, of course. The best example of an artificial reef? A shipwreck!

Loads of lionfish call shipwrecks home – particularly in areas like Pensacola, Panama City, and Destin (the waters of Florida’s Gulf Coast). Just ask the local dive charter for the best artificial reef to find the most lionfish!

7. Where there’s one, there’s more

Maybe it’s because plenty of food is present, maybe they just like a mate. Who knows? But it seems lionfish like to hang out in groups. (Although I don’t have any scientific research to back this up, if I must be honest).

Oftentimes, we’ll shoot one lionfish only to notice one, two, some times three others hanging out right next to it! Jackpot!

Our advice: just be mindful of your surroundings to not scare off any other lionfish close by (and to not to get poked). Scan the area for others after shooting one – you’ll be surprised by how many are nearby.

How to Find Lionfish: Final Thoughts

These are the techniques we use and oftentimes we get comments from fellow divers and students saying they never even noticed the lionfish we pointed out to them. We believe you can literally train yourself to see them more often.

In summary, finding lionfish can honestly be a hit or miss game. But if you follow these tips you’ll surely begin noticing more and more of them on your dives.

Are you ready to start finding lionfish on your dives? We think you are. Just be sure to stock up on the proper hunting gear before you go. And after a few hunts, step up your game even further with even more tips on how to catch lionfish.