As the young bluefish move between inlets, they feed voraciously on finger-size fish. Deciding what lure to throw is a no-brainer. These fish eat anything that fits into their mouth—and if it doesn’t, they’ll attempt to chop it down to size. Any of a number of hard-plastic lures between two and four inches will catch the smaller bluefish, with topwater baits yielding some very exciting strikes. Their serrated teeth do leave a mark on hard plastic lures and your bait will never look shiny and new after just one blue.

Watch out for those teeth: even small bluefish can put a dent in your day.

You also run the very substantial risk of having your line cut and your favorite bluefish lure lost. Heavy mono helps, but the number of strikes will decrease as your leader becomes more visible. You can go to wire for a leader, but we are only talking about 1- to 3-pound bluefish in the ICW. They are terrific sport on light tackle and you will want to keep it that way. Wire will certainly save lures, but once again, the number of strikes will go way down.

Besides smaller hard plastics, I have had a lot of success with small, shiny metal lures such as spoons and tail-spinners. You can cast these surprisingly far, considering their small size. The downside is that many of these lures have a treble hook that can be difficult to remove from a small bluefish, even with needle-nose pliers. Many experienced bluefishermen use their pliers to pinch the barb against the shank of the hook. This greatly aids the hook-removal process. You might also snip two of the treble points, or just replace with a single hook.

I like to use spoons and spinners when I am searching for bluefish where I suspect them to be but I’m not sure of their precise location. By fan-casting over a wide area, you can cover quite a bit of water quickly and speed up the process of locating subsurface blues. From the front of the boat, make a long cast straight ahead. If you do not get a strike, continue to make long casts alternating from side-to-side, such that you cover a circle of water around the boat. If you get a strike at any point, focus on that area and move in that direction. If nothing bites, reposition the boat beyond your original casting range and, like the blades of a rotating fan, continue casting.

If you spot a pod of passing dolphin, be sure to make a cast behind them. I have frequently found bluefish following dolphin in the Intracoastal Waterway in the winter. I would only be speculating as to why they are doing so, but I am sure that it has something to do with an easy meal.

My favorite go-to place to find baby blues is near an inlet. You can count on the ever-flowing, bait-rich waters to hold the interest of roaming blues. The shoaling that takes place tends to channel the baitfish, and bluefish, in turn, move in and chop their way through them.

Once I locate a school of blues, I invariably switch to small, soft-plastic baits like a 3-inch paddle-tail mounted on a 1⁄ 4-ounce jig. A number of lure manufacturers make these kinds of baits and they do so in a variety of colors. I experiment with color selection to find what works best on a given day, but as a general rule, I have found that brighter is usually better for the juvenile ICW blues. The downside is that you will have to replace the soft-plastic bait after nearly every fish. The life expectancy of a soft bait in a school of blues is no better than that of a piece of raw hamburger tossed into a pen of Dobermans. The upside is they’re a lot cheaper than hard lures, of which you’d invariably lose more than a few due to cutoffs. Don’t forget to check your line for fraying after each fish; it wouldn’t be a bad habit to re-tie your jig each time that you put on another plastic tail.