No, thats a bluefish like you find on the east coast. They're actually quite good to eat from what I've read & they're a completely different family from blue runners. Blue runners are a type of jack, and now I can't remember what family bluefish fall into.

My suggestion would be to eat it rather than use it for bait ... but just an opinion

I caught a good few yesterday, probably close to a dozen, but they were all small. A guy from NJ was telling me he used to catch them @ 10lb's up there. Say's they're good eating. Wish we had 10 pounders here

I live a mile from packery,yes its a bluefish,some call them blue runners,and thats about as big as they get in texas waters.They are great table fare also. the only way to get into the channel when the seas are like that is to but your boat on the backside of those swells and follow it in, but a very dangerous situation.

Mitchb

Yeah, it's a Bluefish. I've caught some on the east coast 12-17 pounds. In these parts they are smaller. They are actually not bad to eat if you remove the bloodline

Shark bait!!!

How come they are so small here? Are they habitual to colder waters? If so, how come it's only small ones that are down here?? I would have thought a random assortment of sizes would be stragling here.

Oh yeah, this is from Packery (south jetty) on friday afternoon. You can see the crud floating out of the laguna mudre, and the roughed up sand from the shoreline, and the blue water behind it.

Not too bad. Should be some trout on the out going tide.

Bluefish are very common around here. There has been days when I have caught 40 plus on artificials and yes it is a bluefish. They are not the greatest eating and while I have kept a few, I actually gave an icechest full to the black guy that works at clems. He likes them and was happy to take them off my hands. He is a very nice guy and I was thankful I didnt have to clean them all.


The fish on the right is a whiting.

It was the outgoing tide, and there was absolutely nothing there., Plenty of baitfish about, nothing chasing it. I spent a good hour on each jetty. I spoke to a couple of people on north-side, and all they got was baitfish or nothing. Pretty stark choice. I guess when it calms down and it's not kicking up the sand, the trout will be in the surf, enjoying salty water.
They should have made the jetties longer.
The guy at Clems is called Bryan.

The largest blue I have caught around here was probably around 6lbs or so. I have never caught any monsters. I usually catch them, along with king fish, and spanish mackeral while trout fishing along PINS. I also catch quite a few jack crevelle in the mix. I do not remember any bloodlines in any of the bluefish but I could be wrong. I just remember dark ugly meat that did not look anywhere near as appetising as the white trout and pink smack meat I was getting.

The fishing was awesome yesterday from my understand, especially right before the rains hit you guys. I talked to a buddy who should be posting pics sometime soon and he twore up the big reds for the time he was fishing. The rain should have slowed things down a bit today but I do not know for sure. I do know that it rained hard down there yesterday because I could hear it while I was talking to him. I will be down in three weeks and hopefully by then, the blue water will have moved in close.. cant wait.

Bluefish are great fighting fish exspecially when you get one in the 20lb range. But you will most likely never see them here. I use to hammer them in Florida in the Trident Basin on Cape Canaveral. Alot of people use to eat them there. I never found a decent way to cook them other then smoke them and make jerky out of them. If you do keep them and dont mind dark meat then make sure you bleed them it will help with the meat when you go to clean them. Just cut their throats and let them bleed out and put them on ice. They really like flashy lures like chrome spoons and such like a mackeral.