little blues (snapper) as bait?

[Xfire2149]

I was in Manasquan bay and my GF's 8 yr old wanted to play on the beach so I anchored the boat in 2' water. I stayed with the boat and prepped the fishing rigs and did some regular boat maintenance while everone else was on the beach. Soon birds began diving on baitfish and snapper were boiling after them too. I put a small gulp silver minnow on a small casting rig and started throwing into the boils. It worked perfect and I caught several 6" snapper and tossed them in the bait well.

Question, Are these great bait???  I fished a couple deep just before sunset and nothing happened. I fished one with some weight and kind of jigged him about 20' deep in about 80' water. I had one fast furious line snapping hit but that was it. Being new to the area I am curious if using small blues for bait is an effective techniqe?

[njbob49]

Hi Scott,

Small snappers, bunkers or tinker mackerel are great bait for LARGE fluke.  You can also use a sabiki rig to catch them. I put small pieces of bait on the rig sometimes which helps attract them. If they are thick enough you can also throw a cast net for them.  REMEMBER though that the limit on bluefish, whether big or small, is 15 per person.  I read on another board where someone got cited by F&G for having a lot of them in his live well.  Hook them through the lips or the tail and wait for that big slamming hit.  If you are fishing shallow water with power pro and light gear you will actually feel the bait swimming away as a predator approaches.

In MI we have gotten snappers and tinker mackerel over by the NK3 and Ga****R docks.

Waiting for your call to fish together.

Tight Lines,
Bob G 

[fluke - u]

 

[wb]

snappers, peanut bunkers = fluke candy

hang on.... 

[cricker]

they are great bait, try fishin one on the bottom on a fish finder rig and one with no weight , theres no telling whats gonna grab them out there this time of year, and when they start spazzing out you know somethings after them, it can be very exciting

[bayonne]

i catch blues on them all the time in ny harbor and newarkbay and they work real good as crab bait