Few things in life remain constant. Yet, fishermen of all generations share an interest in one of Florida’s more ubiquitous, if least-appreciated saltwater species. Blue runners aren’t actually blue, nor do they wage a running fight. However, any angler who’s hankered for a no-holds-barred scrap, a first-class live bait or an industrial-grade fish dinner has rejoiced in the knowledge that these mis-named members of the jack family are still as common as ever.

Blue runners school around structure like offshore towers.

Runners are Everyman’s fish. So much so that no one has any trouble recognizing their characteristic, rod-thumping tattoo. In my own case, I can still remember warm summer days spent on an old wooden fishing pier at a time when my major concern in life was emptying a bucketful of live shrimp. Back then, my tackle consisted of a pair of steel baitcasting rods and two levelwind reels. If the gear sounds primitive, the story is equally homespun. Nevertheless, it recalls those days when my Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother, who stood slightly under five feet tall in stocking feet, taught me a lasting lesson in grit.

In a word, Granny was a character. Yet like other gentlewomen of her time, she understood things that seem alien in today’s culture. Specifically, along with possessing a virtually encyclopaedic knowledge of home economics, she knew how to fish and shoot a gun. This leads me to how she liked to accompany her 12-year-old grandson to the pier with the expressed purpose of catching a mess of fat, bone-jarring blue runners.

She viewed it as a higher calling. That’s, no doubt, because people ate the damn things back then. I suppose the eating part hasn’t changed, although most contemporary anglers are too sophisticated to fillet fish with similar pedigrees, with the possible exception of pompano, or heaven forbid, an occasional amberjack.

But getting back to blue runners, I remember the vast schools and how they meandered in and out of the pilings in a manuever designed to outflank the baitfish. We had plenty of small pilchards back then. And runners that averaged better than three pounds apiece were plenty big enough to eat all they wanted. It’s notable that whenever a rookie hooked one, he’d end up losing it around the pilings. But not so Granny, who learned to literally take matters into her own hands.

It was a contest of wills. Especially since whether or not they “run,” a big blue runner can pull like a draft horse. I might add that regardless of age, anyone who intends to land one is well-advised to forget about finesse. Granny figured this out, which explains why whenever she hooked a fish too tough to handle, she simply dropped her rod and reel and handlined it.

That was back in the 1950s. However, I still see similar schools from time to time. Besides, I’ve gotten to know blue runners in other incarnations ranging from tiny, yellow-tailed juveniles that foul sabiki rigs in late summer, to true leviathans of the species capable of inhaling full-size surface plugs in a single gulp. I never figured out why. However, while the ocean swarms with runners in the 3-pound range, you’ll seldom run into a bona fide giant.

There are exceptions. As a case in point, I’m reminded that during the mid-1970s, I landed an honest-to-God 10-pounder while slow-trolling for sailfish. When the goliath gobbled a live bonito, it provided me with a conversational gambit that still inspires comment. Sometimes I wish I’d mounted that fish.

In the interest of perspective, a runner I recently decked at Juno Pier that might have weighed half as much was the largest several seasoned onlookers had ever seen. Just for the record, lunker number two slammed a 6-inch surface plug, which supports my theory that a runner will hit just about anything if it’s hungry enough.

Of course, whatever it is has to fit into the runner’s mouth. However, a whole ballyhoo, an entire squid, a pilchard, or for that matter, a smaller blue runner all qualify. In addition, pier fishermen have always recognized that those 2-inch-long juvenile blue runners we refer to as “dork jacks” are another top bait.

Here in South Florida, we acknowledge that catching blue runners is a year-round proposition.The action starts as soon as the baitfish arrive and peaks from mid-July to September. From what I can determine, a similar situation holds true on both coasts, as well as along the Panhandle.