Caught on vintage tackle in the surf near Panama City Beach. Can anyone help identify it?
Looks to be one of the amberjacks possibly, not sure on species...
Bluefish?
It's a bluefish. Aka, a yellow eyed devil. They will bite you and leave you with a nasty wound if you aren't careful. Those are good shark bait.
Some people eat them. Personally, I don't care for them. The meat is very oily and fishy. If you do want to eat it, make a cut in it's gills and bleed it when it's still alive. Then fillet it and eat it that night. Oily fish degrades very quickly. A lot of guys smoke them. Smoked bluefish is actually pretty good.
Definitely a Big Blue Mike.
I've never seen one that big in the gulf. The ones we usually catch are barely legal. 14"
I thought it wS way too big to be a Blue. Like you Shark Hunter I've never seen one that big in the gulf. He said it weighed 20 lbs and took 20 minutes to beach. He let go to fight again.
Quote from: The Great Maudu on December 22, 2017, 03:28:30 AMHe said it weighed 20 lbs
That there's what you call a fish story....
Not sure but definitely in the Jack family.
Bluefish.
Big Blue.
I don't know about the Gulf Coast but on the SE Atlantic (FL) coast usually early to mid March we get a run of fairly large Bluefish heading back north. Sometimes the schools are quite a ways offshore other times not so far off of the beach. These fish often exceed ten pounds.
During the southerly migration in the Fall, the Bluefish are generally smaller and usually caught near the beaches although I have caught them on the bottom in 400' of water. Not a fan of them for the table but they do smoke well and are fun to pull on when it is too rough to go in the boat. Bleeding and icing down immediately helps make them more palatable. Don't freeze them whatever you do.
Scott
We used to find a few as they passed by the Carolinas too. Twenty pounds may be a bit generous on the size estimate.
-steve
Quote from: oc1 on December 22, 2017, 08:42:02 PM
We used to find a few as they passed by the Carolinas too. Twenty pounds may be a bit generous on the size estimate.
-steve
Come on give the fisherman a chance to lie like all of us... ;D Dominick
Generosity has it's limits Dominick :) I also think the fish is either dead or nearly dead. And this, my friends, is how the Grinch stold Christmas. :)
-steve
White Perch !
The attached picture is the current leader in the BLUEFISH division of the Long Island Fisherman Dream Boat contest. The fish pictured is 21.63 pounds.
Every time I look at the pics of the fish some of you have access to I am just amazed. Hoping so much for my son Luke & I to be able to trip on one of the boats...Jeff
Blues look different depending on where they come from.
The record is 31 lbs I believe.
I've caught hundreds of blues. Never once caught one over 20lbs. 20lb blue is a monster.
When I was a teenager I used to "estimate" all my fish. Then one day one of the commercial guys chuckled when I told him one of my bass was 40lbs. He came over with his scale. Wasn't even 30lbs. It was like 25. That guy later ended up going on the Wicked Tuna show. It really let the air out of my balloon. It made me realize that every big fish that I had ever caught was really only half as big as I thought. After that I came back down to earth. Now I have my Chatillon and do the same. Rule of thumb, if a guy on the internet says he caught a big fish but didn't weight it, divide by two.
Growing up on the Chesapeake Bay in the 80s the blues were really all we had to catch. Stripers had been decimated and there was a moratorium on them.
Nowadays I fish the piers in the outer banks. We routinely use live bluefish as bait.
We use amberjack for fish morneay, or stock for fish chowder, over here Western Australia, they come in differant colours cheers Don.
Amazing how some fish can take on the colors of their surroundings so much so that it becomes hard to recognize them as the same fish.
Now that's nice
The picture of the man holding the Blue Fish is called Tony Fish. He is a regular fishermen on the Brooklyn VI for years. I know him 20+ years. I'm sure that's not his biggest Blue Fish.
Mike
No doubt a Bluefish, pound for pound, they are great fighters, as far as food, my cat spits them out.
I love to catch and release them on light spinning tackle. The Monsters (over 10 pounds) are usually caught at Montauk Point on a regular basis.
As far as size and weight go, I'm just the messenger passing on what the fisherman estimated it to be. I have never seen a blue anywhere near that size in the northern Gulf of Mexico. I've checked with some friends who fish there regularly and they said they haven't seen one that size before either. It's weird.
This is the size we usually catch.
QuoteThis is the size we usually catch.
Great fun on light spinning tackle. Also the small ones actually are edible.
My Boy Michael caught that Blue with a Vintage 4/0 Black on a St. Croix rod in rough surf with a pinfish we caught in the bay.
The next day, I caught a 6' Spinner Shark using that bluefish head for bait.
That is the way you do it. Use squid or shrimp to catch small fish, Use that to catch bigger bait fish, Then move on up the food chain. ;)
He wanted to cook it, but we needed bait. ;)
That last one is what people call a cocktail blue. Perfect shark bait. I fish those guys live all the time for tunas.
QuoteThat last one is what people call a cocktail blue. Perfect shark bait. I fish those guys live all the time for tunas.
My friend made up this fake magazine cover with a small Bluefish I caught on his boat. These are my favorite size Blues. This made it to the table...
Quote from: Shark Hunter on January 04, 2018, 08:00:30 AM
My Boy Michael caught that Blue with a Vintage 4/0 Black on a St. Croix rod in rough surf with a pinfish we caught in the bay.
The next day, I caught a 6' Spinner Shark using that bluefish head for bait.
That is the way you do it. Use squid or shrimp to catch small fish, Use that to catch bigger bait fish, Then move on up the food chain. ;)
He wanted to cook it, but we needed bait. ;)
Daron how old is Mikle ?
Early thirties now.
I'm very proud of him.
He is my best work. ;)
Quote from: Shark Hunter on January 05, 2018, 05:28:29 AM
Early thirties now.
I'm very proud of him.
He is my best work. ;)
Great Stuff !
Pomatomus Saltatrix . . . No doubt !
Tight Lines !