While some anglers turn their noses up at the spring bluefish run, some of us look forward to spring bluefish as a great opportunities for light tackle fishing in the back bays and around some of the jetties. As the blackfish (tog) season closes temporarily and some boats are reporting decent catches of striped bass from Delaware Bay (not to mention from some of the beaches), the spring bluefish run in the back bays has come at just the right time.
This past week bluefish in the 1-4 pound range have invaded the back bays and, in some cases, the beach front jetties and surf. From the back bays of Stone Harbor and Hereford Inlet to Cape May Harbor, small schools of bluefish have been turning up in the usual places. Look for them along the sodbanks, inlets, flats, and at creek mouths. This past week, fishing the mouth of a tidal creek on an outgoing tide, several bluefish (and one weakfish) tried to swallow our white bucktails, to which we added a 3-5″ strip of squid. Some fish hit on faster retrieves, while others seemed to prefer a very slow, deep retrieve. On very light spinning rods, with 12 pound line, a 3 pound bluefish provides a great fight.
The Tiderunner and other charter boats report that blues, with some small bass, have been sucking in flies along the sodbanks and Cape May jetties for the past week. It seems they show up anywhere, so moving around to find the fish will pay off.
Rumors of larger bluefish in the 6+ pound range abound, although they are not the norm. One reason more aren’t being caught is likely because many anglers report being chopped off. Although with small blues, a 30-50 pound mono or fluoro leader is sufficient, larger blues simply bite through these lines. Many anglers use a steel or wire leader, which insures that larger fish can’t bite them off. Jpwever. you may get fewer hits with a wire leader. So it’s a balancing act.
In addition to being fun to catch on light tackle, spring bluefish are great eating. This is probably because they have been migrating, rather than pigging out on baitfish all summer, so they don’t have lots of fat. I’m convinced that these fish have a more delicate taste than fall run blues that tend to be fatter and larger.
This spring run of “tailor blues” (an older angler’s term for 1-3 pound bluefish), is, unfortunately, short-lived. With the exception of the 1 pound fish and snappers, tailor blues generally become scarce by June. The smaller fish stay the entire summer, teasing us as we try for bass, flounder, and weakies. So, this is the time to get out and have some fun with light spinning and fly fishing tackle.