Bluefish

Bluefish occupy the water column over the continental shelf and in coastal waters, and they are one of the least bottom-associated fish in this catalogue.

THEY ARE MIDWATER AND SURFACE HUNTERS. Bluefish move in schools through open water, driving prey to the surface, and they associate with structure only insofar as it concentrates bait. A wreck holds bluefish because it holds baitfish, not because bluefish want a wreck.

TEMPERATURE SETS THE DISTRIBUTION AND IT SETS IT TIGHTLY. Bluefish are a warm-temperate species with a fairly narrow preferred band, and their seasonal distribution tracks that band closely along coastlines. Where the water is right they are abundant; a few degrees outside it they are absent.

THEY USE BOTH OPEN COAST AND ESTUARY. Adults work surf, bays, inlets and open shelf water; juveniles use estuaries and bays as nursery habitat in numbers, and the productivity of those systems drives year-class strength.

SALINITY TOLERANCE IS BROAD, and fish enter distinctly brackish water in pursuit of prey.

SCHOOLS ARE SIZE-SORTED, so a given piece of water tends to hold fish of similar size, and the very large individuals frequently travel in small groups rather than in the massed schools of smaller fish.

AND THE HABITAT IS TRANSIENT BY DEFINITION. Bluefish are among the most mobile inshore predators there are, and a piece of ground holds them for hours rather than for a season.

Bluefish spawn in open shelf water and the pattern is unusually well documented because the resulting year classes are so variable.

SPAWNING IS PELAGIC AND OFFSHORE, over the continental shelf rather than inshore, with eggs and larvae drifting in the surface layer. There is no nest, no site fidelity and no parental care.

IN THE NORTH-WEST ATLANTIC THERE ARE TWO DISTINCT SPAWNING PERIODS — a spring event in the South Atlantic Bight and a summer event further north in the Mid-Atlantic Bight — producing separate cohorts whose larvae are transported to different nursery estuaries. The relative success of the two varies between years and is a major driver of overall recruitment.

TRANSPORT IS THE CRITICAL STEP. Larvae must be carried from the offshore spawning area into estuarine nursery habitat, and whether the prevailing circulation achieves that in a given year does more to determine year-class strength than the number of eggs released.

SPAWNING IS BATCH, with females releasing eggs repeatedly over the season, and fecundity is high.

MATURITY COMES AT TWO TO THREE YEARS, early relative to the fish's eventual size and lifespan, which gives the stock some resilience.

AND RECRUITMENT VARIABILITY IS THE DEFINING FEATURE. Bluefish year classes differ enormously in strength, and a strong or weak cohort remains visible in the fishery for years afterwards — which is why assessments for this species lean heavily on juvenile abundance surveys in the nursery estuaries.

Bluefish seasonality is one of the clearest cases of a fishery tracking a temperature line along a coastline.

THE FISH MOVE POLEWARD IN SPRING AND EQUATORWARD IN AUTUMN, following a band of preferred surface temperature along the shelf. A coastal bluefish season is simply the period when that band is passing, and it arrives progressively later at higher latitudes.

SO THE SEASON SHIFTS WITH THE WATER, NOT WITH THE DATE. An early warming brings fish weeks early; a cold spring delays them; and long-term warming has moved the distribution measurably, extending seasons at the poleward end and shortening them at the equatorward one.

AUTUMN IS FREQUENTLY THE PEAK on temperate coasts, when fish moving back along the coast are feeding hard and are concentrated by the departure schedule as well as by the bait.

THE FEEDING BEHAVIOUR IS SEASONAL IN INTENSITY. Bluefish feed at a level that has made their name a byword for it, and the pre-migration period is when that is most pronounced.

JUVENILES OCCUPY ESTUARIES THROUGH THE WARM MONTHS and leave as water cools, so the inshore and estuarine season is offset from the offshore adult one.

AND THE MEDITERRANEAN AND OTHER REGIONAL POPULATIONS run their own patterns; the species is near-global in warm-temperate water and its seasonality has to be described per coast rather than universally.

Bluefish have short, closely set, extremely sharp triangular teeth in a jaw built for shearing, and a well-documented tendency to continue snapping after being landed. The injury profile in this fishery is unusually consistent: fingers, and mostly on small to medium fish handled casually.

WHY THIS SPECIES SPECIFICALLY. Most toothy fish are handled with respect because they look dangerous. A four-pound bluefish does not, and it is entirely capable of removing the end of a finger. The mismatch between how the fish looks and what it does is the whole hazard.

HANDLING. Never lip a bluefish. Never hold one across the head with fingers near the mouth. Grip across the body behind the gill covers with a wet cloth or a glove, keep the head pointed away, and use long pliers or a dehooker. If the fish is thrashing, put it down and wait rather than fighting it in the hand.

THE SLIME AND THE BLOOD are their own nuisance: bluefish bleed heavily and coat everything, which is why they are usually bled and iced immediately if kept. The flesh is oily and deteriorates fast in warm weather.

AND THEY BITE THROUGH LINE. A wire or heavy fluorocarbon trace is not an optional refinement in this fishery. A bitten-off fish swims away with a lure in its jaw, which is a welfare cost as well as a tackle one.

Bluefish tackle is organised around damage. Not the fish's strength, which is considerable but manageable, but the fact that a bluefish destroys terminal tackle, baits and other fish as a matter of ordinary behaviour.

THE TEETH ARE TRIANGULAR AND THEY SHEAR. A bluefish's dentition is built for cutting pieces out of prey rather than for holding it, and the same edges go through monofilament, light fluorocarbon, soft plastics and fingers with equal indifference. Anything within reach of the mouth is consumable.

WHICH MAKES A BITE TRACE STANDARD AND THE CHOICE OF TRACE A REAL TRADE. Wire is reliable and visible and reduces takes in clear water. Heavy fluorocarbon is less visible and is not proof against a fish that turns on the lure. Most anglers settle on the lightest wire that survives, or accept losses on heavy fluorocarbon, and both are defensible positions rather than one being correct.

SINGLE HOOKS ARE WORTH ARGUING FOR HERE MORE THAN ALMOST ANYWHERE. A treble-hooked lure in a mouth full of shearing teeth produces slow, awkward, hazardous unhooking, and bluefish are frequently returned. Replacing trebles with singles costs some hook-ups and saves a great deal of damage in both directions.

THE FEEDING BEHAVIOUR SETS THE REST OF THE OUTFIT. Bluefish feed in fast-moving schools, often on the surface, often at distance, and the fishing is a matter of reaching a blitz quickly and casting into it. That argues for tackle that casts far and retrieves fast rather than tackle that fights hard: a long rod, a reel with a high retrieve rate, and dense lures that reach.

DURABILITY IS THE HIDDEN COST. Soft plastics last one fish or less, and a session in a good blitz gets through terminal tackle at a rate that surprises people. Metal lures and hard baits are chosen partly because they survive.

AND THE SCHOOL IS THE HAZARD ON A DECK. Several bluefish loose in a boat, all biting, is a genuinely dangerous situation, and controlling fish one at a time with pliers rather than accumulating them is a tackle-adjacent decision worth making before it becomes urgent.