Bluefish are the fish anglers love to hate and hate to love. They travel in ravenous packs, destroy tackle with a mouthful of teeth, and turn a slow day into mayhem the second they show up. When you want a bend in the rod and do not much care what is on the end, a blitz of blues is the cure.
How to identify a bluefish
Bluefish are built like a torpedo with an attitude: a greenish-blue back, silvery sides, a forked tail, and a large mouth full of sharp, triangular teeth. Juveniles a few inches to a foot long are called snappers and fill the estuaries in late summer; the big fish, ten pounds and up, get called alligators or choppers for good reason.
Where they live in the Northeast
Blues are a warm-season visitor that follows bait right into our waters. You will find them almost anywhere striped bass live, and often in the same blitz: harbor mouths, rips and current edges, open beaches, and out over bait schools in the harbor. They are less structure-bound than stripers and more willing to chase bait in open water, which makes a surface feed of blues easy to spot from a distance.
Seasonality
Bluefish generally arrive in Massachusetts in late spring, feed hard through the summer, and stage another strong push in the fall run before heading south. Numbers swing year to year, some seasons the harbor is thick with them, others they are scattered, but when they are around they are rarely hard to catch.
Tip Watch for the difference between a blue feed and a bass feed. Blues feed fast and violently, often clearing the water and leaving a slick of chopped bait and oil. If the birds are frantic and the surface looks like it is boiling, expect choppers.
How to catch them, and the teeth problem
Blues eat nearly anything that moves, so the challenge is not getting bit, it is landing the fish without getting cut off. Those teeth will shear straight through fluorocarbon and mono. Add a short bite guard of heavy fluoro (60 to 80 lb) or a light wire trace when blues are thick.
Lures and light tackle
Metal and hard plastic hold up better than soft baits, which blues shred in a hit or two. Fast-moving metals and poppers are ideal: Hogy metals and epoxy jigs, Al Gags Whip-It Fish on a jighead, and heavy poppers all draw savage strikes. Topwater is the most fun there is, a chopper detonating on a plug never gets old. A medium-heavy spinning setup with a quality Daiwa reel handles them easily.
Fly
Blues are a blast on a 9- or 10-weight, but they will destroy your flies. Fish durable, sparse patterns and a short heavy-fluoro or wire shock tippet. Poppers and Deceivers are hard to beat.
Eating and handling
Bluefish are good eating when handled right: bleed them immediately, get them on ice, and eat them fresh, the meat does not keep well. Smaller blues are milder; big alligators are strong and oily and better smoked. If you are releasing, get them back quickly, they are tough fish and recover well.