BLUEFISH (so called from its bluish or greenish color). A well-known food and game fish (Pomatoraus saltatrix) of wide distribution. common in summer along the eastern coast of the United States. It is the sole representative of the family Pomatomithr, and closely allied to the mackerels. It occurs in nearly all warm seas. including the Mediterranean (south shore), but is absent from British waters and from the vicinity of Bermuda and the western islands. Along the southern United States coast it is called *skipjack,' or 'skip-mackerel,' and the young are called 'snappers.' Bluefish may be found more or less all the year off the eastern coast of the United States, but become abundant in Slay, when they pursue the schools of fishes seeking inshore spawning grounds. As to their own reproduction little is known; it is regarded as certain that they do not spawn in inshore United States waters, unless, as some believe, they do so in the Gulf of Mexico. The young fish that first appear in northerly waters in August are about 5 inches long, but they grow with great rapidity, becoming 12 or 15 inches long by the next year. They increase after that even more rapidly. It is on record that one of 25 pounds has been taken in Buz zard's Bay, Mass.; but examples of 10 pounds are heavy, and the ordinary catch is from 2 to 5 pounds. A 3-pound fish is about 21 inches long; one of S pounds, nearly :30 inches. The color is bluish or greenish above and silvery below, with a black blotch at the base of the pectoral fin. (For the form, see Colored Plate of FOOD FISHES. ) The bluefish is a voracious feeder upon fish— the most destructive and remorseless bandit of the northern seas. "Going in large schools, in pursuit of fish not much inferior to themselves in size." writes Prof. S. F. Baird. move along like a pack of hungry wolves, destroying everything before them. Their trail is marked by fragments of fish and by the stain of blood in the sea; as where the fish is too large to be swallowed entire. . . . It kills many more than it requires for its own use." This exces sive voracity, which characterizes the young as well as the old, is a very serious factor in the mortality of the sea, and undoubtedly diminishes in an extensive and persistent way the numbers of many other gregarious fishes, and particularly of the menhaden. They are also very fond of
squid; also of certain kinds of marine annelids.; and as these animals are the favorite food of sev eral other fishes, their diminution is another indirect effect of the general destruction of fish life to be charged to the bluefish. They some times ascend the larger rivers; going up the Hudson, for instance, as far as the tide sets.
The bluefish is regarded in the Northern States as one of the very best table-fish, hut is not liked south of Cape May; yet the taste is growing there. The wholesale dealers of New York alone handle from 4,000.000 to 5.000,000 pounds annually, worth $250.000 to $300,000. Large quantities of these market-fish are taken in weirs or pounds from the eastern end of Long Island to Cape Cod, and still greater qantities by gill-nets, while line-fishing yields a fair proportion. See FISHERIES.
The sport of bluefishing is perhaps the fore most in American marine angling. One mode of capture is by trolling: but as in that method the boat is moving and the fish books itself, it gives little sport. If excitement in capture is desired, it is easily obtained by 'chumming,' wherein the boat is anchored, and the fish are attracted to it by throwing overboard small pieces of menhaden, with which the hook is only baited. The bluefish is then handled on a rod, and the fisherman will have plenty of sport, for his prey is an animal of great intelligence and resource, as well as a frantic fighter. Another common method is by heaving from the shore. "No rod [or only a short one] is used; hut the angler, standing on the beach or in the break ers, whirls his heavy jig about his head and casts it far into the sea; and having hooked his fish, he puts his shoulder to the line and walks up the beach, dragging his prize after him to the shore. This is practiced everywhere on the exposed sandy beaches, such as border New Jer sey, Long Island. and many shores eastward. Other anglers prefer to use a light rod and an artificial minnow from a stationary skiff, or to fish with shrimp bait from the wharves in quiet bays, where young bluefish resort.