I’ve been on tilefish trips when fishermen pulled bluefish from extreme depths at the edge of the canyons. Not only do they swim in most of the world’s oceans, but they live in a wide range of habitats. A bluefish on dry sand will put up almost as much of a fight as a bluefish in the water. Their never-say-die fighting style has ended many a rod, reel, and lure. It takes a bluefish just one-third that size to trash your tackle.
The largest bluefish ever caught on rod and reel was a 31-pound, 2-ouncer caught off the beach at Hatteras, North Carolina, in 1972. Rumors of 40-pound bluefish off the West Coast of Africa persisted into the early 2000s, even though none ever made the record books. James Hussey with the 31-pound, 12-ounce world-record bluefish caught off Hatteras, North Carolina, in 1972. They’re called “elf” and “shad” in South Africa, “tailor” in Western Australia, and “” by eel-slinging surfcasters in New York. You’ll find bluefish off the east and gulf coasts of the US, off the east coast of Brazil, both coasts of Africa, and most of Australia. I’d traveled to Florida to catch “exotic” species like snook, red drum, and tarpon, so I was somewhat less excited to catch this bluefish, than I would have been to catch one several months later in New Jersey.īlues have a much broader range than stripers. It was roughly 2 pounds and did what 2-pound bluefish do best-shredded my soft-plastic trailer. For example, my first saltwater fish of 2019 was a Floridian bluefish caught at Sebastian Inlet in January. I love to catch them when I’m targeting them, but I’d rather not encounter them when I’m not. Like many fishermen, I have a complicated relationship with bluefish. I’ve looked forward to introducing my daughter to the pint-sized savagery of a snapper blue since she was born in 2015, and I still haven’t had the chance. Snapper blues, a late-summer staple for kids, kids at heart, and trophy-seeking fluke fishermen, have been largely absent as well. Over the years, that week whittled down to a few days, then one day, and this past year, none.
#Atlantic bluefish full#
In 2010, I could count on a weeklong onslaught of big blues around the Cape in late September or early October, especially around the full moon. When I first visited the Cape Cod Canal in the early 2000s, I thought nothing of the bluefish blitzes that pinballed around the Big Ditch at the middle of the day. The disappearance of big bluefish was a slow bleed for me and for many of the striper-, fluke-, and albie-focused fishermen in the Northeast. With just three days in Jersey to get my bluefish fix, it would have been easy to write off the fishlessness as bad timing-I’d arrived too early, too late, or during one of those mid-season lulls that happen from time to time-but the fishing had been lacking all spring, and it never improved after I left.Ī few months later, NOAA declared the bluefish as overfished, and the bag limits dropped from 10 (or 15 fish, depending on the state) down to 3 fish (or 5 fish aboard for-hire vessels). We bounced between bay, inlet, and beach, finding stripers, but no blues, a juxtaposition of my efforts a couple decades earlier. Shell Caris had found them on the outgoing in the back Tom Lynch had them on the incoming out front. Steven Perna scans for signs of bluefish. But, on day two of my hunt with Steve, it felt like we were chasing ghosts. I used to curse them for cutting off my clam-baited circle hooks or slicing through a pack’s worth of Pink Zooms. For as long as I can remember, early to mid-May was a lock for big blues. It should have been the heart of the bluefish run off New Jersey. Instead, I was using it to cut the chill as I followed Steve Perna down the sod bank on the hunt for Plan B-bluefish. The wind that cancelled my tilefish trip forced me to don the thick neoprene jacket I’d brought along, expecting a cold sunrise offshore.
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