2012 bluefish migration NJ....

The winter Herring presence...

As mentioned, the big bluefish usually show up first, known as racers.....big head and lean bodies....
followed by the smaller ones from the Southern Coast.

This year they are all mixed together.....
A lot of folks may think of them as eating machines...but may not know what draws them to particular areas...in years past it has been the grass shrimp and spearing on the floor of the Raritan Bay flats that has drawn them in and held them in the spots adjacent to the flats.

In 2012, it was the herring....loads and loads of it....so much that it darkened the bay waters at times in the channel areas.....

I have been following those herring since Dec......long before bunker were around.....and tracked the biggest schools, kept tabs on the locations...and waited for conditions to align......

As herring usually don't stay in the bay or harbor areas too long as the water warms up in the Spring,. I knew the window was limited.....

For the last 3 weeks, bigger bass on the migration trail and these bigger bluefish have been gorging on the herring, not only in the bay but in the ocean.....

This made it so the early season bluefish weren't "racers" but instead are fat bellied pigs, spitting up 3 and 4 herring at a time when you bring them in.......

And has made for an incredible, once in years, plug bite as the herring are the same size as bomber type plugs.......

I last remember a bite this robust about 8 years ago when hooked and landed over 100 bluefish one adrenalin filled afternoon at Sandy Hook....only a few others in on the action,...it was a bite that you always think back to and wonder if if will ever repeat itself....

And this week, it did.....