Sharps Island Blues

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Mid Bay
Location: Sharps Island Flats

We chased fish at various locations on the flats. After catching some small blues and stripers, we found some violently breaking large bluefish that gave us non-stop action for about an hour. My catch was 6 bluefish (several kept), five in the 3-4 lb/20-22" range, plus 3 large blues that broke off just short of the boat. I also landed 5 striper schoolies, two keepers (18" and 20.5"). I had my best luck throwing a 5" silver and black popper on a short wire leader at the big blues. They were also hitting other lures as well. Everyone but the fish thought my popper was too big for the bait that the rocks are feeding on, but I was also going for big fish, and it caught the blues and my keeper rocks (the releases were on a Yo Zuri fire tiger floating crystal minnow and a small hotrodded white jighead with a small hotrodded yellow bass assassin trailer)! The hard surface bluefish strikes on the popper were like bombshells going off. Overall, we had 7 keeper schoolies for 5 fishers and 10 or so blues that we kept with many releases.