When and how to target bluefish?

[bunnielab]

Hi,

The other week I had some smoked bluefish and I have decided that I need a lot more of that in my life. I have caught a few dinks here and there as bycatch in the South and Severn, but never see much about guys going after them. Most of the time it seems like guys are catching them while fishing for stripers, but I am looking for any advice on where and how to go after them specifically.

thanks

[Big Mike]

Drew, bluefish tend to hang out in the same places as the rocks. Last year they didn't show up until late July down here in the lower slower and they can disappear as quickly as they appear. If they are around you can throw your softer plastics away, they have an uncanny ability to bite them off right behind your hook. If you fish a Z-man plastic you'll feel them pulling on them, or you may find the tail bitten off. Switch to small metal spoons or a crankbait to avoid bite offs if they are around. I also had success switching to chartreuse 3"gulp on a light jig head and casting to them. It was critical to set the hook vice trolling to avoid losing the bait.

[hookmeup]

If you can find diving gannets they're either on rock or blues chasin bait. Pitch a metal (sting silver, kastmaster or other shiny metal). Usually a good idea to use single hooks instead of trebles. Pinch barbs as it can make dehooking easier.

[Yak Fish]

In the summer, the better ones are up and down the main stem of the bay, given away by thrashing birds busting into the water! I'm with you, smoked blues are delicious. You target them much like you target rockfish, but you never know what's in that school. It could be either, but generally it's both.

[bunnielab]

Cool, thanks for the info guys. I had hoped that they were not always intermingled with stripers, which increases the fishing pressure on them. I guess I need to get a radio and listen in for guys complaining about their lures getting torn up.

The ones I caught from shore were all caught on a kastmaster. I keep a 1/4oz one in my perch kit in case I need to get a lure further out then I can throw a smaller spinner. Every time I got one it was from seeing birds just off shore and bombing the spoon out to them.

[dirtyjake237]

In July and August I catch quite a few bluefish most under 20 inchers around Poplar Island. They are mixed in with the stripers, usually the stripers stay a little deeper than the blues. I cast a floating flyline and a silver anchovy pattern for the blues and cast a sinking fly line with a weighted clouser, wait till it sinks and usually a striper takes it below 12 feet in depth. And as all others have already mentioned look for the birds working.

[yakscientist]

I would be very interested in taking a few trips specifically targeting bluefish this year, probably to the mainstem of the bay, or more southern locations. I say once it starts to warm up around June or July, we start planning a few trips. I intend to catch a few at J-bay this year as well, though many may be above the size of what I would like to consume. The majority of blues I've caught in the bay, for what it's worth, have been while livelining in large schools of stripers, like it was said above, they are often comingled. I worked as a mate on a rockfish charter boat occasionally, and the only hook injury I sustained was due to a bluefish. I was holding the leader and about to use pliers to remove the hook from it's jaw, and it flipped off the deck of the boat and buried one of the treble hooks points into my palm, and the weight of the fish falling back to the deck helped put it in a bit deeper, and the fish actually came off the hook and landed back onto the deck. I suppose any fish could've pulled a similar move, and I was still sort of in shock upon seeing it, and just took the pliers and pulled it out of my hand, strangely it only bled a little. Some sanitizer, and about 5-10 mins of applying ice, and I was back to fishing. I too think bluefish are delicious, and based on the fight they always put out, a very underrated fish.