JasonL

Fishing yesterday in this heat was a chore after 9am and the sun became unbearable.

We started off the rocks in between the Palafox pier and Wahoo park and found some small specks and small sea bass working some bait in the area. We also spotted a manatee just outside of the area near the ballpark and about a minute later I was reeling in some line and that same manatee surfaced literally 5 feet from the boat and nearly caused me to fall overboard. He must have been curious because he came up and looked right at me, then went back under and swam right underneath the boat.

I've never seen bait as abundant in Pensacola Bay as I did yesterday, which was great, but we had some trouble getting consistent specs and blues to bite with the amount of bait that was around. We found some fish working pretty hard a few hundred yards off and to our dismay it was catfish hitting our lures. Great fight, but not what I wanted to see.

We followed the bait around a number of rock formations and had a small bit of luck with bluefish when straying away from the bait pockets. We had to call it quits around 10:30am because of the heat.

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JoshH

curious what kind of sea bass you were catching...?

JasonL

This kind. This is a picture of one I caught last Saturday, but it is the same size and everything. Use a grub on a jig head around the rocks near Wahoo park in the morning around 5-6am and you can't miss them. They don't alway bite right away, but keep at it and you'll grab a few. The problem is that they are too small.

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ctilton

Are those in the pic Blue fish ? Are they good to eat?

flyfisher

Yes and Yes...but you need to bleed them first and eat them fresh. They don't freeze well.

Bluefish are considered excellent table fare in the northeast...but, of course, their water is cooler up there so that may explain some of it.

JoshH

hmmm. used to catch those south of tallahassee, always called em rock bass.

JasonL

I don't eat much fish (I usually let my brother take the meat), so I may not be the best person to answer this, but a lot of people eat bluefish, especially up north. I will mention that the small ones that we catch down here are much better to eat than the larger ones you'll find up north. The smaller the blue, the whiter the meat and less fishy-tasting they will be. As the previous poster mentioned, they're best when eaten without having been frozen and when you filet them, be sure to keep the blood off of the meat as best as you can. They are one of the easiest fish to filet.

Robin

Excellent Smoked !!!!!

Longbow14

cut them into chunks and dip them in batter they're great fried, grilled fresh or if you do freeze them they make a great fish chowder, or shark bait. they really are a blast on light tackle.

ctilton

now you're speaking my language! Peanut Oil is coming with us!