I just love the name for smaller bluefish, cocktail blues, they were hot and heavy this morning.  On a scale of 1-10, jacks are a 9, blues a 6 and peacocks a 4.  Lot of fun on 2# fish.

We call um snappers up here....the best Eatin blues too

About 50 years ago, doesn't seem that long ago, I spent about a year in Manahatten, actually lived in Union City N.J.  My first real introduction into stripers and bluefish, fish from NJ to Montauk.  As I understand it there are 3 strains of blues, north atlantic, mid atlantic and south, biggest up north and the smallest down here, it's rare to get blues over 30" here but it happens once in awhile, up there 10-15 pounders are commonplace.

I thought the "cocktail blues" was something you got when there was no liquor in the cabinet?? 

I never heard that term until a few years ago, a former Long Island fishermen who is my best fishing buddy down here in Florida turned me on to it.  We were catching small blues one day and he said those were "cocktails blues", I instantly fell in love with that name for them.

Update......... the cocktails arrived in force this morning, bigger than before averaging about 20 inches.  I kid you not a fish on every single cast, they were chasing the bait right on to the beach. I must have caught about 15, got cut off twice, it was alot of fun.  As good a fight as they give had they been 4# jacks I'd be in ICU right now..........lol.

Cool - a Blues Blitz is fun no what size they are.

 

The smaller ones made excellent live bait for Cobia.

 

A-Jay

A lot of folks on the coast of NC consider Blue fish a trash fish but smoked blues are durn great eating!

A lot of folks on the coast of NC consider Blue fish a trash fish but smoked blues are durn great eating!

They eat them down here too. 

Nothing bothers me more than the term "trash fish".  For recreational fishing I'll take the so called hard fighting trash over a gamesfish with a blah fight any time.  IMO if you have fish on the line that has to be walked down, run after to avoid being spooled or does a few 360's around the boat you got a hard fighting fish, standing in one spot and just winching them in quickly, you got a pansy on the line. The fight is what it's all about.

I go blue fish fishing a few times a summer in long island...  they call them snapper or **** tail blues.. so much to catch and put up an awesome fight with light tackle!!

They showed up again today and a fish a cast, even had a 2 banger on one topwater lure.  I got cut off 3 times today, my loss for the last week or so is probably in the area of $90 in lures, that's fishing.  I did put wire on at that point, and that was the end of the bite.  Question is did the wire curtail the bite or did they just clear the area, I'm going with them just leaving and looking for bait elsewhere.  We catch much bigger fish in the summer, but this time of the year it's lots of action with smaller fish.