Over the years of fishing bluefish have rarely been an edible fish to me.  I have had it at my in-laws and once at J-Bay extremely fresh. I have always enjoyed smoked fish. Last weekend fishing I ended up keeping the last bluefish caught. Began to prep the fish by bleeding it right away. Its kinda of gory but a necessary first step to extinguishing the incredibly fishy taste of bluefish.

Upon landing on the beach I made sure to scale and filet the fish asap. Leaving the skin on. Then immediately putting the fillets on ice. Once home the I prepped the fish by cutting the blood line or vein out. It is distinguishable by the dark red line that runs along the lateral line of the fish all of the way through the fillet. I bagged the fish in separate zip lock bags and back on ice it went.

I found a recipe online that worked really well! It was shared by a fellow New Jersyian whom smokes a lot of meats in his backyard. I modified the recipe to work with what i felt the amount of meat on hand which was about 4 lbs of fillets.

4 cups water
1/8 cup kosher salt
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons whole mustard seed
1 1/2 tablespoon whole peppercorns
3 crushed bay leaves

The recipe states to mix all of the ingredients up in a bowl. I decided to use the ziploc bags as i think they work best for marinading any meat. I then poured half and half the solution and divided the heavier stuff that was left per bag.  I then placed flat in the refirgerator overnight. Ended up being about 12 hours. The recipe states no less than 5 hours on the marinade.

The next morning i removed the fillets from the marinade and using the smoker racks that i had oiled with olive oil placed the fillets skin side down on the racks for “drying”.

I have heard of this drying process before although it sounds odd it is the most important thing you can do to preserve the moisture. Unless you like hard dried fish.

Let dry on the smoker rack with the smoker door open outside for 3-5 hours. The longer the better. The filets will look shiney and have a sticky film. This is how you know they are dry enough for smoking.

Now you will load your smoker box with some hickory. The recipe called for Hickory. I think next time around im going to try a fruit tree wood such as apple or alder.

Get your smoke up to 200 degrees and let smoke for 3-4 hours. Or when it reaches 145 degrees.

You will know the fish is done when it flakes with a fork and has a golden brown color to it.

I think the fish was the best when it was warm right out of the smoker. You can put it in the fridge and it will last a week or two. When you are going to enjoy it take it out of the refrigerator and let it get to room temperature for the best taste.

Also for a real treat mix the smoked bluefish in with cream cheese and spread it on bread or dip some chips or crackers. Excellent!!

The recipe referenced in this article can be found here.

Kayak Fishing Report for Raritan Bay New Jersey 5-24-14

Kayak fishing Raritan Bay New Jersey for Striped Bass Bluefish and Fluke (Summer Founder)

Arrived at the drop in at 5 am. Did not stop for any bait as best bets there would be bunker plenty available. Water temps 60 degrees outgoing tide had just started. Water was muddy as there were heavy thunder storms the night before. There was actually an entire tree trunk floating.

Started Trolling with Diawa SP Minnow. No luck no bunker. Trolled for 2.5 hours. Decided to switch for Fluke.

First drift had a few hits. Maybe Sea Robins or Fluke that were just mouthing bait.

Made around 15 drifts with no hook ups. Wind was against tide and strong. A bit chilly intil around 9am. Finally spotted bunker. Small schools boats kept crashing the schools. I was able to snag one.

Rigged the bunker for live line set up. Drifted across reach channel . Had a hit on the bunker then no more. Reeled up only the head was left.

Dropped back down and hooked up a bluefish that eventually sawed my hook off the leader. By now the sun was out strong and the wind was pretty straight out of the north. Spotting bunker was almost impossible.  Decided to troll and ended up landing a nice bluefish 30”. Lost my SP minnow and a few other lures.

Called it a day at 2:00 PM just after slack low tide.

Striped Bass in thinking are mostly up the river spawning. Few reports of them on the radio. A little early for fluke in the back of the bay. Maybe by this weekend.

Another J-Bay Kayak Classic in the history books! As always a different story to go with the event. Weather good and bad. Broken gear and decent fishing!

As my previous post stated, the weather wasn’t predicted to be fish able Thurs night into early Saturday morning as a slow moving but very strong storm system was predicted to pass through the area. Thought about staying home Thursday night and leaving very early Friday morning to beat the traffic. I was unsure of what the weather would be like so the decision was made as soon as 5:30 came and work was done a day early for the week. Finished my packing and left the house a little after 8:00 PM to arrive at Floyd Bennett Field by 9:00. It was too windy for night fishing so a few brews and a little catch up and sleep for the morning.

Friday:

Around 7am it was still very windy. We hung out for the morning and awaited the captains meeting at 11 AM. After the rules were explained it was decided the tournament is to be postponed until 5AM Saturday morning. The video shows the morning before the captains meeting.

A group of us went fishing anyway. It was quite windy at least 10-15 with 20-25 mph gusts. Mill Basin was the only place sheltered from the direction of the wind. It seemed like a good spot for fishing. The area was loaded with bunker. Using 1 oz a weighted treble hook snag the bunker. Then reel it in and hook it up on a live line setup.

A live line setup consists of a Heavy rod be it a jigging rod or just good 7 foot 4-8oz rod. I use a custom 7′ heavy rod with a Abu Garcia 7000 C3 reel spooled with 65lb Power Pro spectra Braid  Terminal tackle consists of a 9/0-10/0 Gamakatsu Octopus hook with 50-60 lb mono or fluoro carbon leader a barrel swivel. For weight you can use a nylon slide on the main line with 12-16″ leader extension for a bank sinker or use an inline egg sinker with a bead at the swivel side.

For snagging bunker for bait. I use a Medium Heavy spinning rod with a Quantum Boca 40PT series reel. Also a 60lb fluorocarbon leader is tied on uni to uni. You may use a wire leader after that before the weighted treble hook. Just in case a bluefish inhales the bait you just snagged. Added protection against blues biting through your fluoro leader.

Fishing for me was uneventful after fishing the area being blown around for 3 hours. A few of us made the decision to get off the water. What a great decision it was. Not even 20 mins later the wind was intensified to easily sustained at 30 mph. Back at camp/tournament headquarters portable toilets were being blown over. Tents and shelters were knocked down and tables and chairs from the event tent were thrown over.

The weather ended the day and eventually cleared up around 11:30 PM after down pouring for about 2 hours.

Saturday:

Up at 4:00 am and getting ready for 5 AM tournament start. Trucked the BIg Rig Down to the launch. After Broke my cart I then broke my pliers. Realized i did not have enough rod leashes with tme so i ended up making 2 more. On the water about 3/4 mile from the launch first hook up trolling a Spro BBZ1 Thought it was a Striper at first turned out to be a 32″ bluefish. Thats a nice fish. Measured him for the tournament and released him alive. Caught 4 more around the same size one  20 inches. No bass. Was looking for schools of bunker but dud not see any. The amount of freshwater probably pushed the bait down.

Went back to the launch to get my net for fluke fishing. fluke fished for about 30 min wind against tide. Couldn’t even buy a hit.

After coming back to the launch a second time I noticed 2 police cutters and a helicopter. Looked like they were searching for something. Turned out they were just training. It was pretty cool watching them maneuver and pickup the divers.

After that i went back out for picking up winds against the tide. It got rough out there so i headed in.

A few hours later gave it another shot for Fluke this time paddling the Cuda 14. It was still rough out there and wind against the tide. Gave it about an hour and gave up with no Fluke being caught.

Sunday:

Sunday was a hard day to find fish. I was looking for fluke most of the day. Was able to hook up a few decent sized bluefish. Fluke were not easily found again. Off the water around 12 pm and loaded up just in time for the awards and lunch. Jackson Kayak donated a Big Rig for raffle which was really cool!  There were four other boats for the raffle too. The winners received a nice plaque with the chart of j-bay and the 4 targeted fish painted on it.

To the right were the results of the tournament. Brian Pickard was in our group and won 3rd place Grand Slam! Grand slam is 3 largest combined fish consisting of a Striped Bass plus Fluke Bluefish or Weakfish.

If you have never fished Jamaica Bay its a great place to fish. It is very kayak friendly and holds many migratory fish. I look forward to seeing everyone there next year!!