WICC Bluefish Tourney

[Patrick]

We don't get many slammer bluefish. Anything above 10 lbs from shore is good around here. From shore we get the little snappers up to 6 or 7lbs. Every so often someone hooks a decent one. I had a 12 lber on my line last season. That fish just steamed in and rubbed the rocks and PING! No blitz just a "passer by". Every so often we get a school of blues crashing schools of bunker. I wouldn't call it a blitz but it's enough to get me going. So far this year, I have seen two schools of bunker. I was alone with both of them(two seperate days in a week) and screwed up both of them. Every so often, boaters get good fish.

If you can find live bunker, you might have that 200,000 dollars. Live bunker is the key. My advice is, find a school of bunker, try to get one or two blues. If they are good ones, keep fishing, if not, move on. If you can't find live bunker, move to the bait. I see everyone is going bananas over a fresh bunker. I've had more luck with mackeral than bunker. Most times I've had more luck with frozen mackeral than fresh bunker. Especially vacuumed packed mackeral. The stuff is like candy to fish.

Save the mackeral heads. Don't waste them on bluefish. I've never seen a bluefish caught on a mackeral head or even heard of them. Mackeral heads are quite possibly the best bait around here for stripers. I'm sure eels are better but I have seen one fish caught on an eel<takes a bow> and dozens of fish that get fooled on mackeral head.

There are just a few good spots around Fairfield. Black Rock Harbor(captain's cove), Penfield Reef, Buoy 18(some people call it Can 18 but can's are odd numbers and got corrected by my old boating teacher so now I call it Buoy 18) Those places are going to be mobbed. You ever see the Fireworks in the City when the boats all get lined up? That's what it's going to be like.
Patrick.