Massachusetts 05-16-2010

[Sport Fishing]

OUTDOORS: Dealing with early season blues, 05-09-10

Mike was staring at the shredded plastic bait and scratching his head. It certainly looked like a bluefish bite but it was April 27 and we all know the first run of blues doesn’t hit the Wareham River until the first full week of May. Later that afternoon when I called M&D’s Sport Shop for the Fisherman report, the owner related the story. I was able to confirm the presence of bluefish because one of my editors and his friend Dave had caught an 8-pound bluefish in the upper Westport River that same morning.

If you can recall a time when bluefish were little more than a myth, then you have been fishing for a long time. Although I had been regaled with stories of bluefish and their bloodthirsty inclinations, I never saw one until I was just shy of my teen years. That evening I was aboard the Barbara V, a round bilge cabin boat that was moored at the Weetamoe Yacht Club on the east shore of the Taunton River. On board that evening was the skipper, Eddy Tavares, the caretaker, Pedro, and this willing participant.

At that time, extent of my waterfront travels was limited to lower Mt. Hope Bay and it was a rare day for us to steam past Brayton Point. On this trip we steamed all the way to the Mt. Hope Bridge where we put Japanese feathers over the side and began trolling from the second pier of the bridge to the Hog Island light. We didn’t get very far.
Less than 200 yards from the bridge, a bluefish attacked the starboard feather and broke the surface, leaping and tail walking like nothing I had ever seen in my life. The covers of Field and Stream and Outdoor Life would occasionally feature an oceanic billfish punching a hole in the sky in a flurry of white water and spray. This was blue collar version of the blue marlin. We left port that night with two club-like boat rods with the consistency of a pool cue, four feather jigs and a case of chilled Old Tap beer. After the melee was over, we returned without a single feather but there were two very bloody four pound bluefish on deck and the adults in the crew were working on the last half of the case of North End brew.

While far from a well rounded fisherman up to that time I had caught white perch, tautog, eels, choggies and school stripers when fishing with the old gents. In all that time I had never seen a bluefish and was in awe at how they tore into lures and broke the surface of the water. That voyage was one of many others for blues that season but their appearance was an aberration and we didn’t see another blue that year or throughout the next decade. One mid-morning before calling it quits for the day we ran from Sakonnet Light to a cove in the Sakonnet River known locally as Skunk Hollow.
From first light to an hour before noon it had been a beautiful, yet tough, morning trying to fool stripers with our popping plugs. A warm sunny day with little wind is not the kind of weather that turns stripers on. On a hunch we headed for the ledge off the Skunk where there was a noticeable slick on the water. I thought it might be from baitfish but my first cast resulted in a crushing hit followed by an airborne display once the fish felt the bite of the hooks. It had been so long I had no idea what it was until the second jump when the azure blue sides of the fish became lit up in the bright sun.

After so many years there was a bluefish on the end of my line but before I could celebrate my good fortune the fish jumped again and spit the popping plug right back at me. Inattentiveness and a slack line usually results in a lost fish. Before distress had time to set in Paul had a fish on and he didn’t make the same mistake. I arrived at the office two hours late that afternoon but the five blues from three to five pounds we ended up with was the frosting on the cake. I was even more surprised when Frank at L.V. Drape Fish Market paid me the handsome price of $ 25 cents a pound, a full nickel over the going price for stripers.

That was the beginning of the longest and largest run of bluefish along the New England coast in almost a half century. Those three pounders ate everything in sight and grew to be tackle busting teen-sized blues that tore up tackle from Newport to Neponset. At the height of the run the members of the Linesiders Bass Club including Ernie Rogers and his deckmates made regular trips to Nomans where they landed alligators up to 19-pounds, never quite breaking the magic 20-pound barrier.

This season a full two weeks ahead of schedule the bluefish began making forays into Narragansett and Mt. Hope Bay where they surprised fishermen who were hunting early season schoolies. Blues hit the Kikimuit and Taunton Rivers and reports from my friend Dave Anderson at Westport and Gene Bourque in Falmouth verified that the choppers were making early inroads all the way to the warm waters of the South Cape beaches and up into Cotuit harbor.

Last Sunday we had nine husky bass in the Westport and a few slams from finicky bluefish cruising in the same skinny waters. Reports from the Tiverton basin and all along the Bristol, R.I. shore corroborated reports from other areas however these were not the usual three-pound blues that usually arrive first, these were 8-pound racers that were starved and willing to take almost anything that was tossed in their direction.

If you are looking for some tackle testing action during the coming weeks, tie on any one of the Point Jude lures and heave them out from your favorite location. If you can find a rip or pinch point in a river where the current forms a rip that is where you will find blues.

If you plan on taking one or more home for dinner be sure to bleed the catch as soon as possible and keep it on ice until you are ready to fillet it. Bluefish that are carefully prepared make excellent table fare.



http://www.heraldnews.com/sports/x19...y-season-blues