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Bluefish bite should be best during blue moon

Photo by FRANK SARGEANT

Bluefish are common catches throughout Bay area waters in cool weather, but most disappear by spring.

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By FRANK SARGEANT

Tribune correspondent

Published: January 2, 2010

Updated: 01/03/2010 12:36 am

Neither blue moons nor bluefish are blue, OK?

Bluefish are sort of steel gray, an appropriate color for a mechanical eating machine, and the moon is ... well, you know what color the moon is.

But the blue moon this month is surely a good time to pursue the fish called blues. From now through March, the toothy predators will be here in droves, slashing up anything that will fit between their jaws.

There is nothing closer to the famed South American piranha in U.S. waters. When blues are around, it is normal to reel in a trout, whiting or pinfish with everything below the shoulders missing. Blues are the only fish outside of sharks that have been known to attack swimmers in Florida waters; a school of 10-pounders buzzed the beaches of the Miami area a few years back and took several chunks out of bathers.

Blues get into a sort of frenzy when there's a lot of blood in the water and they will bite pretty much anything they see. They've been observed driving other species right out onto the beach in the waters of the Carolinas. They're also one of the few fish (one other is the mangrove snapper) that will actively try to bite the hand of a fisherman. They watch until your fingers come within range and then snap like a steel trap - the small ones only cut, but big ones can take out divots of flesh the size of a half-dollar.

Given all of this, why would anyone want to mess with bluefish?

Because, like Everest, they are there, perhaps. Anytime water temperatures drop into the 60s, blues that normally live far north of Tampa Bay area waters pour south like New Jersey tourists, and a fair number of them make it into the Gulf of Mexico.

They primarily feed on the big schools of anchovies, threadfins and sardines cruising our waters, but they will attack just about anything that fits between their jaws. They often travel with schools of Spanish mackerel and jacks, and finding them is just a matter of seeking out diving birds and leaping baitfish. You might get a different species on every toss of a small jig such as Doc's Goofy Jig, a hairless jig that imitates glass minnows when fished rapidly.

Blues in our waters typically weigh 1 to 3 pounds, though they can grow much larger. From the Carolinas north through New England, fish weighing more than 15 pounds are not rare, and the all-tackle record is 31 pounds, 12 ounces.

Just about any bait or lure will catch blues. Durability is more of a consideration than shape or color, because the normal plastic or bucktail jigs are instantly chopped up by bluefish teeth. Small spoons are a good choice, as are hard-bodied topwater plugs worked very fast.

They also readily take any sort of small live minnow or live shrimp, and they are scent feeders, so putting a sliver of cut bait on the hook of a jig usually greatly increases the number of hookups.

Blues have the speed of the mackerels, and they occasionally jump high into the air when hooked. Good places to search for them are the outer edges of deep grass flats, typically in depths of 5 feet or more. They also are often found on either side of the Tampa Bay shipping channels, particularly near spoil bars, and over the deeper grass in Sarasota Bay.

The sharp teeth make a stout leader a must, and most who pursue them go to No. 2 or heavier wire. Some anglers use 40- to 60-pound test fluorocarbon, which is OK for smaller blues but larger ones chop it off like a strand of cooked spaghetti. Typical inshore rigs work well for blues - a spinning outfit with 10- to 15-pound test microfiber line is ideal.

About the unhooking thing; it's necessary to hold a bluefish right behind the eyes to keep him from flipping sideways and chomping the hand you put down to remove the hook. Or better still, keep your hand well away from the jaws by using long-nosed pliers or a fish-flipper.

Blues are reasonably good to eat if bled immediately, then placed on ice. Filet, cut away the skin and red line, and they're good in most recipes, though they taste somewhat fishy if fried. The bag limit is a liberal 10 daily, with minimum size 12 inches to the fork.

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