Picky blues? yeah i know...

[Chrisper4694]

I know your first thought is going to be coincidence it's all in our heads but here was our day...

just like everyone else, we headed out into the dense fog wondering what the hell we were thinking. We decided to stay close and set up shop on a decent spot. We knew there would be bluefish but in hopes of maybe a striper we toss out our bait on clear leaders (with plans to switch to steel leaders if we had blues infestation)

within 5-10 minutes boom, bluefish on and got it to the boat luckily with no cut leader. instantly again, bluefish on, leader cut after a little fight. Boom another one popped off at boat side. Then one more cut leader... ok we had seen enough, we were fishing for blues today so we switch all the clear leaders to metal. Not one hit, take or pop...what happened? guess the bite died? we waited and waited...1.5 hours not one touch.

So my friend thinks maybe there is a striper around, takes a clear leader with clam and throws it out. Instantaneously slammed by a bluefish, that luckily gets to the boat with no cut leader...We look at each other and think...wow the bluefish are leader shy, wtf???

so we pull out the thickest clear leader we have on board and switch everything over, sure enough, anarchy ensues with blues on every which way, many obviously lost to broken leaders and others to popped hooks, but wow has anyone else ever experienced leader shy picky bluefish???

Anyway we boated 11 nice sized blues up to about 35" and only 5 skates (one of them freakishly large) and kept a few blues for some tasty cakes!

[BottomBouncer13]

Absolutely I used to fish for blues on the Keansburg pier all the time and would be nailing them while others watched using heavy clear leader. I think it has to do with something with the fishing pressure. I never had the issue on my boat but you never know.

[reason162]

I think when this happens we just don't notice, since we have such a healthy stock of blues and they're not generally the target species anyway. Around the world anglers pursue blues as a prized gamefish, and I've seen videos where they talk about finessing down their tackle to hook up.

We're really much luckier than we know, and all the richer for them big blues that swarm our inshore waters.

[shrimpman steve]

I absolutely think they can be picky. When this happens I go heavy clear leader with a large circle hook. Get the demon in the corner of the mouth and you loose less to bite offs.

[DEEP POCKETS]

Nice report and way to get back safely with the fog.

We had them pretty thick behind our boat, they didn't seem to mind the wire leaders but they definitely hit the baits that had fresher bunker than washed out baits.

My uncle started catching them on jigs too while we were anchored up👍🏻

[Rocky]

Blues can be leader shy as well as hook shy at times. We would hook the bunker in the nose and the blues would leave the head. Then we would hook the bunker in the tail and they would leave the tail. So we figured a good plan, lets double hook the bait one in the nose and one in the tail. Well that didn't work out too good either because they would just take a bite out of the center and leave the rest alone.

[Chrisper4694]

Yeah we had to keep the bait fresh too or they wouldn't touch it! And I too once experienced them 'eating around the hooked section of the bait!