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Beating the blues
By Joe Brotz (Roccus)

A lot of fishermen are having difficulties with marauding bluefish...So heres a few tips on beating the bluefish blues.
This far north (Merrimack River, Massachusetts) they are only an occasional nuisance, spending more time out to sea and little time close to shore, I'LL share a few tricks that have worked for me in the past, both from anglers better I than that no longer fish our waters...but are watching down on us all (if I get struck by lightning you know they're *i$$ed!)

Back in the late 70's and early 80's we had bunch of those toothy marauders that totally destroyed the bass fishing, every morning I noticed one old gent with a few nice bass,while the rests of us chummed in the bluefish with our eels and bunker.... well as it turned out this gent was trolling sea worms along the grass banks and creeks(much like I do with eels) and avoiding the blues who preferred larger, meatier and bloodier targets, yes he caught some blues (or got cut off ) but he managed to get to the bass, something the rest of us failed to do, since then on a few fall runs when the blues invaded my striper blitzes I too have gone the worm route, it works!!!! at least you have half a chance....

The other bait (crabs) I learned from another old trickster only because I caught him red handed! while everyone else was singing the "blues" he was racking up some impressive catches on green crabs by anchoring by structure in a current and floating the crabs under a large cork bobber, I've tried it several times (using a balloon instead) with mixed results, I have caught bass,some good ones too,buy have also been skunked when i knew the bass were present but ole razor lips refused to let my eel swim un molested....
but they never ate the crabs!!!!!

Just another option instead of racking the rods in disgust..unfortunatly those tactics don't work on dogfish....if it sinks,floats or swims...THEY EAT IT

Tight lines(bass only)
Rock

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