New surf turf for me this year, 2011, I'm going to try my luck for bluefish when they finally push up their way north from Florida to the Long Island shoreline.
By my calculation, the first bluefish should arrive at Jones Beach in the fourth week of April. It will, of course, depend on the size of the mackerel schools they are chasing. If not many mackerels the bluefish should arrive to our shoreline earlier. Every year, however, the time schedule changes. And some years, like last year, the bluefish fail to show up in great numbers. I could only hope for swarms of choppers, feasting on sand eels, spearing, and menhaden (bunker). This year, however, I'll be dunking bunker chunks for them blues at Field 6, the ocean, rather than Jones Inlet. It's not that the ocean is more productive for choppers, but in the ocean there tends to be more striped bass, a pick up while trying for bluefish.
Mainly, I see fishing the oceanfront for bluefish as more of a change of pace. I have been regularly fishing the Inlet for bluefish, especially cocktails, for the last 15 years. I need a change or else I'll go stir crazy. To fish religiously year after year can get tiresome, believe me. I need to change it up once in a while to keep my interest level up. I always considered Field 6 excellent for bluefish and striped bass. The big difference between the Inlet and Field 6 is more folks today fish the Inlet than the oceanfront and bass fishing is better at Field 6 than at the inlet.
Nonetheless the Inlet is more closed in than the long stretches of ocean beach. I've been at the Inlet in May when anglers lined up shoulder to shoulder to nab cocktail bluefish. One in a while a hefty chopper of ten-pounds gets pulled out, overall the bluefishing at the Inlet is the place to go to catch those toothy creatures. Yet, I'm worn out, fishing fatigue, of tossing out line again to catch bluefish. For a while in the mid to late 90s, I was fishing 200 times a year. Always fun, but I need a change of pace to keep my interest level high. That's why I might use funky bait like shrimp, even chicken. Simply to break up the monotony.
If the bluefish bite turns super hot this year on the oceanfront, I might move once in while to the Inlet to toss out artificial soft plastic lures. I can't use soft bait in the ocean simply because of casting reasons; at the inlet, all I have to do is toss the soft plastic only 20 yards out and I land in deep water more than 10 feet. I haven't used artificials regularly for the last few years, believing that bait works better for both bluefish and striped bass. Nonetheless I do like using lures. I toss out a 3/8 oz. leadhead weight with a Fin S, my color of choice is white, and sassy tails are fun, yet the bluefish have to be in the area for me to switch from bait to lures.
Since I grew up using bait it is my preference. Beside using chunks, I even come to use the guts and hearts of the bunker in the inlet, and I also chop up the head into small pieces to use for flukes or bluefish. I only do this if I'm running low on money. It works. The heart stays on the hook, and with the head I could get at least three to four small pieces out of it. Yet only when I'm low on funds will I do this. You never know if a striped bass is lurking in the neighborhood and might be hungry enough to swallow a whole bunker head.
Nonetheless, I'm fishing the oceanfront this year in spring. In late April, early May, not many beachgoers and not many anglers plying their trade on the surf. I could just stick my sandspike into the sand, tune in my MP3 player, and rest and wait in my chair with the hope a striped bass along with bluefish notices my baited hook.
I do enjoy fishing for bluefish. Not only the fierce fight, the cocktails of one or two pounds are delicious, better tasting than the big choppers, which I find tasty enought to make fishcakes out of them. By far, however, the cocktails taste better. The smaller blues feed on sand eels and spearing while the bigger blues feed on bunker. So when you eat a big bluefish you're eating what that bluefish last ate, usually oily, stinky bunker. And the small blues sand eels and spearing.
Neverless I won't throw back a legal fish for me to keep regardless of it being a hefty brute bluefish. This year, I will wait and see what it will bring on the oceanfront. If I get shut out a few times, that's it, I'm heading back to my old cocktail bluefish stomping grounds at the Inlet. And fish alongside the usual crowds. Some of the faces I have seen for years, and years, and years, nonetheless it's good to reconnect with those who spend a good chunk of their lives hoping to catch what is expected. The bottom is, however, is to fish where there's fishing action. Maybe this year that place is the oceanfront.
