Bluefish on the bay 5/20

raywillsail · Post by **raywillsail** » May 21st, 2007, 2:17 pm

This is a little out of the area but if you like bluefish and live anywhere near Choctawhatchee Bay (Destin), now's a good time to get a fish dinner. I imagine the same thing is going on in bays to the east.

I was out Saturday in my little 11' sailing dinghy, taking my wife for a sunset sail. Naturally, I had a rod in the rod holder, dragging a mackerel tree and a clark spoon. We caught a nice bluefish in the channel near Brooks Bridge, downtown Ft. Walton Beach. As we were going back to the dock, we passed a big sailboat with a couple rods on the transom, and naturally hailed them to see if they'd had any luck. They said they'd caught a bunch of bluefish. "They're all over the bay," the captain said.

So yesterday morning, my 14 year old youngest son and I took the little sailboat out at the crack of dawn. Our plan was to sail down to the Destin Coastguard Station channel and troll up some mackerel, but by the time we got over there we'd filled the ice chest with bluefish. Most of them were caught on a 3/8 oz redhead jig with white nylon, tipped with a bit of belly skin from the bluefish of the day before. We trolled these at between 2-4 mph. Caught a few on a clark spoon, and a few on a yellow and white jig.

That was the end of fishing for the day, since we have a rule that we quit when we have enough for a big meal. Bluefish don't keep or freeze well, in my experience. I cut them into boneless fillets, dipped the fillets in Cajun batter, and deepfried them in fresh oil.

They were fit to eat. There weren't even any leftovers for the dogs.

Ray

Post by **MudDucker** » May 21st, 2007, 2:42 pm

I don't like Blues, however, if I were to eat one again (as I have in the past), I would gash and bleed them out immediately. I've tried them both ways and the bled out fish is WAY better.

raywillsail · Post by **raywillsail** » May 21st, 2007, 3:06 pm

It's true that they're better if you bleed them. I like to make a cut through the bottom of the gills-- that way you don't spoil any meat. I also cut out the blood line while filleting them.

Ray

MudDucker wrote:I don't like Blues, however, if I were to eat one again (as I have in the past), I would gash and bleed them out immediately. I've tried them both ways and the bled out fish is WAY better.