As they are with many other species, seabirds are always a good indicator of hefty blues below.

Ever reeled in half a trout?

Odds are good the other half of that trout was down the gullet of a bluefish swimming nearby.

No other species, not even sharks, are such aggressive, slashing feeders as bluefish. In fact, in the Carolinas, where the species gets huge, it’s not uncommon for schools of weakfish and other unfortunates to actually be driven out on the beach by the marauding slashers; the fish would rather risk suffocation ashore than sure death in the water.

Blues are nearly alone among gamefish in having a reputation for occasionally taking a bite out of humans, too. A decade or so ago, schools of big ones ran in among the bathers at Miami Beach and bit whatever they could get hold of, to the horror of the tourism bureau. And blues are noted for biting the hand that catches them, too; they’ll lie quiet until a finger comes within reach, then flip sideways and snap those razor-edged jaws like an alligator.

Add to this ferocity the species’ ability to run, jump and generally conduct itself in serious gamefish fashion and you have to wonder why more Florida anglers are not bluefish fans.

Part of the reason may be that bluefish are not particularly predictable. Though they travel generally with the migrating baitfish, north in summer, south in winter, they’re here today and gone tomorrow, unlike Spanish mackerel, which might hang on one bar for weeks so long as the food is there.

Lunker blues, 12 pounds and up, are gamefish on a par with snook or anything else Florida has to offer. The strike of a big blue on a topwater plug is a sight to see; I’ve had them actually chop balsa wood plugs in half, exposing the wire harness down the center. They’re fast and as powerful as jacks, and they throw in some spectacular, head-shaking leaps if you put a lot of pressure on them. The fight closely resembles that of the Pacific roosterfish—no relative, but they share the same spirit.

Blues on the Gulf side of the state don’t get all that large as a rule; a 5-pounder is a whopper. The species doesn’t like warm water, and it’s likely that as the fish mature they leave the Gulf for good and roam up and down the Atlantic shore where they can stay in water that’s around 68 degrees or so year around.

Want light-tackle fun when the mercury plummets? Tackle inshore blues on 4-pound-test monofilament.

However, they do put on a great show on the west coast at times. Once I was sitting on Chassahowitzka Point hoping for a redfish to bumble by when the water began to shiver and hump up the way it does when a school of big fish is on the move in the shallows. A school of blues came gliding all around the boat, maybe 500 of them, all close to 2 feet long. They hurried right past me and trapped a pod of mullet up against the shore and just cut them to pieces, blood and scales flying everywhere. They were gone by the time I got over there, but they left a lot of dead and dying mullet. Apparently there were more than they could eat, but they just couldn’t stop themselves.

In general, blues like the same sort of conditions that turn on jack crevalle; lots of bait, preferably with a shallow shelf, sandbar or shore to trap it against. They’ll frequently buzz over the grass just to make sure there’s no lazy trout hanging around, too, though I’ve never seen them on the true flats in depths less than about three feet. The big ones love high-current areas with jumbo baits like adult mullet and big shad abundant. There’s a good fishery in the North Fork of the St. Lucie River most winters, and they also hang around the Crossroads area at Port Salerno in chilly weather. In the last couple of years, 5- and 6-pounders have made the Indian River into a year-round home. I don’t think they migrate up most coastal rivers like jacks, however—they don’t have to because they’re not particularly cold-sensitive. Some of my favorite winter areas are the bars at the edge of the dredged ship basins toward the back of Canaveral Harbor; put the boat over the deep water and cast back toward the shallows at dawn with a topwater—and hang on. The fish here tend to be jumbos.