Thumbs don't go here. You'll want a handling device to dehook toothy bluefish.

Long Bar in Sarasota Bay is another pretty consistent bluefish hangout in cool weather, and they cruise the channel edges and the outer bars throughout that area, too. Ditto for the Bulkhead area near Anna Maria in lower Tampa Bay.

Blues travel with the bait schools that also lure kings, Spanish and other species, which means west coast fish start north around the Keys in March and wind up on the Panhandle by late April. On the East Coast, the adults go as far as the coast of Massachusetts by mid-summer; there’s a spectacular fishery for the monster 15- to 18-pounders off Martha’s Vinyard and Nantucket into mid-September. (Blues get even bigger on occasion; the all-tackle record is 31 pounds, 12 ounces, taken off Cape Hatteras in 1972. Good thing they don’t reach 500 pounds or not even great whites would be safe.)

Most of the International Game Fish Association records have come from North Carolina and Virginia, but many of those same big fish migrate to Florida in the winter. (Others are thought to winter offshore of the Carolinas.) The reason they are rarely caught here is that nobody concentrates on them when we have sailfish, tuna and wahoo to enjoy throughout the winter. The Florida record, 22 pounds, 2 ounces, was caught at Jensen Beach in 1973. A few anglers got into trolling big spoons on downriggers a mile or so off the beach a few years back, and they occasionally hit schools of blues in the 10- to 15-pound range, along with some nice kings, pretty much all winter.

Bluefish populations do, in fact, seem to be cyclical, perhaps rising and falling with baitfish populations, parasites or maybe even bluefish predators like bluefin tuna. It’s recorded fact that numbers can be cut by half in a matter of a few years. In any case, many bluefish experts believe there is a 20-year cycle in bluefish populations, and that population last peaked in 1985. That being the case, this year may be the year of the bluefish.

Blues are one species that is not turned off by a cold, blustery day on the beach; it’s common for fish to come right up against the shore when a strong northeast wind pushes bait in close, and there are days on the piers at Sebastian and others up and down the coast when you can hit amazing action by whipping a big Krocodile or Hopkins spoon or other silvery offering out there a mile and cranking it back at warp speed.

When it comes to topwaters, anything big and splashy will do. Choose a bullet-shaped plug that weighs 2 ounces or more, so that you can really put some distance on it. You can’t fish it fast enough to take it away from a bluefish that wants it—give it the Florida whip times two and you’ll be about right. Blues also readily attack plastic-tail jigs, but you only get one fish per tail—better to stick with more durable lures if you’re targeting these choppers.

Blues also readily take dead bait on the bottom, and that’s a favorite tactic for visiting surfcasters from Virginia and the Carolinas; a 2-inch chunk of fresh mullet or pretty much anything else fished on a pyramid sinker big enough to hold in the wash will do the job.

They also love live baits, of course, including finger mullet and pilchards. Whatever the offering, it’s essential to fish it on a short wire to prevent cutoffs; No. 2 is okay for the little guys, No. 3 for Atlantic Coast fish. Forget using heavy mono, like you can with Spanish sometimes to increase the number of bites. Bluefish teeth fit together like serrated scissors, and they clip even 50-pound test with ease.

To most anglers, fishing for bludfish means surf rods, sand spikes and cold, winter days. In recent years, Florida anglers have also been catching helfty blues on trout flats.

You can actually smell feeding bluefish when they get into menhaden or other oily fish; the fish scent wafts off the surface and you can sniff it over a hundred yards downwind if you’re alert. Keep an eye out for bluefish slicks, too; when a big school is feeding heavily, the oils from the chopped-up baitfish float to the top and create a slick. And of course, the usual gull tornado can also be a tipoff. (It’s not uncommon to see one-legged gulls in areas where big blues are abundant!)

Blues also hang around the muds that pop up off Homosassa and other areas in late March and April and again in November and early December. The muds are thought to be created by thousands of grunts, snapper and other fish grubbing shrimp out of the bottom. The blues, along with some big kings, tend to hang around the edges of these muds and grab anything that comes out, including seatrout and Spanish mackerel.

Blues are even noted for taking chunks out of each other. It’s common to catch bluefish with healed, semi-circular wounds in their flanks; wounds just the shape of the dentures of their schoolmates. And blues always travel in schools where every individual is nearly identical in size. Biologists think it’s because big bluefish routinely eat little bluefish.

FS