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Bluefish everywhere

"Yesterday, my friend and I caught almost 100 bluefish," reports Phil Vecchio about Sunday's action.

"We started at 8, north of Prudence and slowly moved south down the East Passage. The schools of bluefish where everywhere. Around 10:30 we decided we would head over to Wickford for a coffee, when we got near Wickford Cove, we found a school of blues along the breakwater that kept us busy for over 2 hours.

"The blues ranged from 8 to 10 pounds. For fun, we were putting anything we had in our tackle boxes, including little freshwater frog lures. They didn't care what they were eating as long as they were eating.

"Anyway, after lunch, we started to head back to Warwick when we saw a school between north of Quonset Point, but south of Allen Harbor (near where the new cars are delivered and stored). In there, we chased the school and the bait fish right to the dock. I'm 37 years old, and I pretty much grew up fishing in the Bay. In all those years of fishing, I had never seen a school that big or that concentrated! No word of a lie, there was so much bait fish piled on top of each, they were laying on their sides, literally out of the water! At one point, just for fun, I grabbed a net and stuck it in the water and with no effort whatsoever, I scooped up hundreds of bait fish. It was amazing! The school of bluefish chasing the bait was so intense, the water was foaming over! They were splashing around so much, it sounded like we were stuck in the middle of a downpour. The fish never left that spot.

"The size of the bellies on these bluefish were huge, they looked like they were going to pop! We weighed a couple of them, and they ranged from 11 to 13 pounds. I bet probably at least 3 pounds consisted of lunch!

"I never thought I would say this, but I was literally fished out! We were totally exhausted. Around 4 we decided to pull up the anchor and head home. I wouldn't be surprised if that school was still there today! I wish I had a camera, I don't know if anyone would believe me."

Ed Hughes of Clean The Bay reports that bluefish have been feeding outside of Allen's Harbor for several weeks.

Posted by Tom Meade  at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments 4