What is a a sawbelly???

[HerringKing]

I talked to a guy today that said he was jigging sawbellies on sabiki rigs. I googled it and it says that they are freshwater herring but this guy was definitely in saltwater. The guy showed me a pic. It kinda looked like a cross between a snapper blue and a bunker. Has anyone ever heard of a sawbelly?

[Pokerman1]

A sawbelly (aka mooneye) is a landlocked form of an alewife, commonly found up here in the Finger Lakes. They are an excellent bait for trout (lakes, rainbows, browns), as well as northern pike. They are quite delicate and difficult to keep alive for fishing trips, requiring cold, aerated water.

Joe

[catfishonthelake]

I talked to a guy today that said he was jigging sawbellies on sabiki rigs. I googled it and it says that they are freshwater herring but this guy was definitely in saltwater. The guy showed me a pic. It kinda looked like a cross between a snapper blue and a bunker. Has anyone ever heard of a sawbelly?

Sounds like there's a really good chance he was breaking the law.

[Tony Cav]

Colloquial term usually referring to a freshwater herring, occurring in deep cold water lakes.

[Bates]

They are fresh water herring that populate hopatcong and greenwood lakes. They are sold in some bait shops as freshwater bait but some people use them for fluke fishing. They do not live long in saltwater but if you are drifting it is like using a giant spearing. They have been in short supply in the last few years because not to many bait dealers were netting them. They are hard to keep and are named for the bony protrusions on their underside that act like saw teeth if you run your fingers forward over them.

[bulletbob]

They are here in the Fingers by the gazillions.. Landlocked Alewife. Looks like a peanut bunker... I have used dead rotten ones from the lakes up here in saltwater, and they get grabbed by everything, Blues Fluke, Birds Sea Bass,... whatever..
I hope to get a bunch of them in the spring and freeze them for next summer..
When they spawn up here, you can snag hundreds of them with a little treble hook... I think its legal up here, not sure.. The schools I read on Cayuga are immense.. Some times they go from 40 FOW to 120 FOW packed solid, and are 100 yards wide and long, and the schools are EVERYWHERE.. Thats why the Finger Lakes trout are so nasty to eat.. [worse than blues IMHO].. They eat nothing much but these oily little greaseballs...bob

[cantcatchme]

Sounds like the guy was throwing you for a loop. Then again, maybe he really thought they were sawbelly's. Either way he was most likely catching river herring which is illegal at the moment.

[thefishermanmechanic]

Herring King? does not know what a sawbelly is? You should change your user name to softlipped Brown!

[NJ219bands]

They were probably hickory shad. I caught and released 48 in Manasquan Inlet the past 4 days. The limit is 6 per day.

[dfish28]

Sawbelly: this is what happens when I pee...:D

[bfj2000]

I first of these during a family vacation at Seneca Lake in NY. We needed bait for lake trout, salmon, etc, expected live herring, but the local bait shop offered "sawbellies". They add salt to their water to toughen them up.

Also had experience with these in Brewster, Cape Cod in Late April many years ago. The sawbellies migrate from the bay into freshwater streams to breed. The fish were easily caught with nets and even bare hands. Folks were out catching them to facilitate their journey upstream to calmer waters. My son got quite a few bloody scrapes from scooping them out of the water to move them further upstream (thus the term "sawbelly"!)