Fish are Jumping

Yesterday afternoon and evening, huge schools of bluefish were just off shore near the Shoreham nuke plant, churning up the water with their feeding frenzy.  Craig, Dennis, Kayla and I were in Craig's boat when we first saw them, and we ended up following the school for a couple hours, pulling fish out of the water continuously.  Dennis had a great idea when he taught little Kayla how to steer the boat.  She got pretty good at following the fish at just above idle speed. This time, instead of throwing the fish back as we usually do, we filled up our wells and filleted a bunch of them back at the boat ramp.  Many folks think bluefish aren't that great for eating, but I find that if you marinate fillets in Italian dressing and grill them on tinfoil, they're delicious.  I put about two dozen fillets in the downstairs freezer, and I'll probably be eating them for dinner a few times this week.

The fish were biting on small Hopkins and Kastmaster-type spoons.  Basically, anything shiny that wasn't too big.  I swapped my big Hopkins out for a smaller one and started pulling fish in on nearly every cast.  At one point, the water was churning around the boat like we were in the middle of a summer rainstorm, but there was no rain.  Just the fish feeding off of spearing.

It was a great trip.