Hardest fighting fish and weakest fighting fish in NJ?

[TheDreamCatchers]

Just wanna start an interesting topic cause it's a common question. This can be fresh or salt.

For freshwater Ive gotta go with hybrid, pike, and carp as strongest. And for weakest its gotta be crappie or walleye.

Saltwater has got to be bluefish or mackerel. And the weakest are flounder and dogfish.

[bassnblues]

Salt:
Hardest: Albie
Weakest: skate

Fresh:
Hardest: carp
Weakest: rockbass

[JDTuna]

Salt

Hardest: Bigeye tuna
Weakest: Ling

Fresh

Hardest: hybrid, with honorable mention for carp and flatheads
Weakest: largemouth

[HerringKing]

Salt:
Hardest- sheepshead
Weakest- ling

Fresh:
Hardest- bowfin
Weakest- largemouth and rockbass

[Chrisper4694]

Wow largies getting shat on!

Sw: h- bluefish and blackfish

W- porgy!

Fw: h- carp and hybrid striper

W- warm water lake trout (cold water they give a good fight though! Same with walleyes. That's why the fair weather fishermen always calling them wet towels)

[briansnat]

For freshwater pound for pound the strongest is hybrid striper, with sm bass honorable mention.

Weakest is crappie. I've caught monster crappie where I thought I was reeling in some weeds. Honorable mention to yellow perch.

I haven't done a lot of saltwater fishing but of the ones I caught:
Strongest fighter - Bluefish
Weakest - Blowfish

[Lard Almighty]

Freshwater:

Strongest - Smallmouth
Weakest - Fallfish

Saltwater:

Strongest - Redfish
Weakest - Skate

[Jigman13]

Sweetwater:

S: hybrids & river smallies; Carp have size and sustained power

W: yellow perch

Salt:

S: big eyes and bluefin tuna

W: skate, pout, hackle heads, ravens and all of those smaller deep dwellers.

[Dave B.]

I have to agree with most, for Fresh it's stripers and smallies as the hardest with an Honorable mention to Carp for pure tireless bulldogging power. As for the weakest Fresh, LMB are lame and Fallfish give up real quick too.

For the salt, blues obviously have a huge edge over most other species pound for pound but albies beat them out by a good bit. As for pure power in the salt cow rays are just plain tough! Lamest salt fight IMHO goes to...horseshoe crabs. Okay just kidding, the tamest salty IMHO is either blowfish or northern stargazers.

[bulletbob]

Depends a LOT on how you define "hardest"...
a 5 pound carp or channel cat is a strong bulldog of a fighter..
a 5 pound Landlock is fast as hell, pulls plenty hard, and makes spectacular aerial leaps..
.. a big bluegill fights hard as well, just doesn't have the weight, but fights as well as a SMB ounce for ounce..


Overall, I would say top 3- 1-Landlock
2- SMB
3- Carp/ Channel Cat

The esox family.. meh, they're good fighters when you get a big one, but in my book, a channel cat or carp fights just as well or better..
Walleyes are not great fighters, but they give a decent account when you get a good one say over 21-22 inches...

Weakest- Probably crappie..

Salt water??.. All around inshore, nothing beats a Bluefish, but nothing is FASTER than the small tunas... Albacore, Bonito etc, pull hard, not quite as hard as a Bluefish, but for me I think they are better fighters all around because they combine a hard fight with spectacular speed...
honorable mention goes to tog.. Bulldogs when you get a good one..
honorable mention II- Porgies.. big ones fight like hell all the way up/...
Weakest- Skate, NO question

bob