You need to get these fish out of the water, dispatched, and iced immediately. We catch our blues right around the time the water in the shallows of the Chesapeake Bay hits the mid 80s.
Don’t be that person- all fish will spoil quickly when treated poorly, but the fattier the fish, the better care should be taken to keep it cold and fresh. I’ve seen people catching blues and tossing them into an empty bucket on the hot sand and then complain that they don’t like eating them. Bluefish is best when it’s kept on ice and eaten on the same day. They have a higher fat content than some other fish, which is what makes them so tasty, but that fat can also spoil quickly, giving it a fishy taste. That night, in camp, we had the most incredible bluefish tacos.īluefish gets a bad rap for being fishy, but handled correctly and eaten fresh, they are some of the sweetest, most delicious fish around. We pulled anchor and headed to harbor, the tops of the swells just barely breaking over our stern. The spadefish hanging out on the rocks just a few feet below kept taunting us, but the fun was over and the wind had started to blow out of the west. We kept pitching and pitching, hoping to catch a few more to round out our limit, but they had moved on. We had 26 blues in the box quicker than it took me to write this. Our friend Cam got bitten AND hooked by the same fish, and just about the whole boat had a sheen from the fish slime, blood and tiny scales that covered everything we touched.Īnd just like that, it cut off. At the time, the limit for blues was ten per person, so we pretty quickly filled our cooler.
We lost more tackle than we’d care to admit, and the bucktails that survived were completely stripped by their sharp teeth- not even the paint was left. The fish were everywhere, and the surface of the water boiled with the violence of their feeding activity. If you haven’t been in the middle of a blitz, written word will fail to convey the excitement and chaos of it. Out of nowhere, a big school of bluefish cruised through, and we quickly re-rigged with bucktails (no leader- we didn’t bring any) and started casting. We launched our tiny boat and headed a mile offshore on a dead calm day to some structure that we thought might hold spadefish. Sprinkle the remaining chives on top and serve with toasts.Our most memorable bluefish day was a few years back, when we were still getting our feet wet with fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. Fold the smoked bluefish into the cream cheese mixture.
#Smoked bluefish dip skin
Once cooled, we separate the skin from the meat being careful to remove any bones and gather ingredients for the pate. When they are done, we remove the filets from the grill and set them aside to cool. They should have a good smoky crust, but still remain moist on the inside. After roughly three hours on the smoker at 175º to 200º, the filets should take on a deep honey brown color.When the smoker is around 200✯, we add the presoaked wood chips to the coals, and put the filets skin-side down on the grill grates. Once the pellicule has formed, we sprinkle them with a bit of paprika for color, and fire up the smoker. Average sized filets are usually ready in about three hours. Smoke doesn’t stick well to wet surfaces, so you want the surface of the fish to dry out and form a sort of skin, called a “pellicule.” Dry filets in the refrigerator. When the three hours are up, we remove the filets, rinse them, and set them on a wire rack over a baking sheet to dry. We usually put our filets in a gallon sized zip-lock bag and place them in the ‘fridge for about three hours, but you can let them go for longer if you like. You can tailor the brine to your individual taste, adding soy sauce, a dash or two of hot sauce, or a bay leaf, for example.Brine filets in a solution of 1/2 cup salt and a 1/2 cup brown sugar dissolved in a quart of cold water.
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