Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
If you’ve fished the Ocean City Inlet and around the Rt. 50 Bridge area lately, you know that there are plenty of bluefish around, and if the season goes the way the last few have, we’ll also likely have bluefish in our nearshore ocean waters all summer.
But for some of us who remember how many big, 8 to 12 lb. bluefish there used to be, there seems to be a void in the ocean that just can’t be filled by a lot of little snappers. And since it takes a little bluefish to make a big bluefish, it’s painful to see folks not properly respecting the little guys we have swimming in our inshore waters right now. It also reminds me of something I witnessed a few years ago…
“They’re just bluefish,” the kid said to me as he stuffed another two-pound snapper headfirst into the electric meat grinder. “And when I’m finished they’re going to be a bucketful of chum”.
The boy was responding to the comment I’d made about it being a shame to see the waste of so many good fish. Apparently he had caught about 20 bluefish at the inlet that morning (by the way that’s 10 over the limit) and was quite pleased that his efforts provided him with just enough of what was now “bluefish burger” to fill a five gallon bucket.
“You going sharking tomorrow?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “A guy who has a charter boat said he’d give me $15 for every bucket of chum I could get him.”
Remembering how, as a kid growing up on the docks, I had also done a lot of dumb and pretty short sighted things like making chum out of game fish, I didn’t tell the kid what I really thought. Instead I gave him something to ponder by mentioning that I bet he’d really enjoy catching those same fish some day if they could have lived to grow to be 12 to 14 lbs. But he just shrugged, snapped a lid on the bucket, repeated “they’re just bluefish,” then shuffled down the dock to collect his cash.
They were “just bluefish” to us back in the 70’s when the big choppers were always so abundant only a few miles offshore. From April through November, on just about any given day, anglers could troll-up virtually non-stop action a few miles offshore with fish that averaged 8 to 12 lbs. There seemed to be such an endless supply of bluefish back then that few people saw reason to try and conserve them for the future, and the “choppers” too often ended up as chum, fertilizer, cat food or crab bait. I even remember selling them to local restaurants for a mere 15 cents a pound. White marlin have always been the glory fish for Ocean City’s offshore anglers, but bluefish were the most consistent crowd-pleasers and the most sought after target of the ocean fishing fleet. But like anything else that comes too easy, our bluefish resources so often went abused and unappreciated until they were virtually gone.
To the young man trying to earn $15 by selling a little chum, that bucket of 20 snapper blues may have represented nothing more than an hour of fishing down at the inlet and a little time on the grinder, but had those fish been allowed the chance to grow to maturity, they would have been so much more to so many people. Twenty big bluefish can be enough to make for a very successful day for six anglers aboard a charter or private boat. Twenty big bluefish could send 8 to 10 surfcasters home with wonderful memories of an exciting day on the beach or provide a summer’s worth of bait for the average shark fisherman. Twenty big bluefish could feed sixty people, provide hundreds of catch-and-release opportunities for anglers of all ages and skill levels and produce millions of eggs to help perpetuate the species for our grandchildren’s children. Or on the flip-side, 20 small bluefish can provide a kid who doesn’t know any better with enough money to buy a new CD and get a captain a cheap bucket of chum.
Catching bait can be a lot of fun but and a great way to save or even make a little money, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But just because a particular fish seems plentiful and easy to catch doesn’t mean that it’s okay to “load-up” on them to use as bait or chum. Particularly when there are other alternatives in the coolers and freezers of local bait shops.
No matter what the species or the size, game fish are too valuable a resource to be exploited rather than cherished and protected. Those of us who remember how it was, know that they’re not “just bluefish”. They’re reminders of how good things were, and how good they can be again if we don’t repeat mistakes of the past.
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
