Bluefish keep attacking prey long after they seem to have eaten enough
The bluefish is the last surviving member of its entire family, and it hunts like it has something to prove. Schools tear into baitfish in frenzies that carry on past the point of hunger, sometimes chasing them into the surf so hard the shallows churn like a washing machine. Anglers call it a bluefish blitz.
Pomatomus saltatrix roams temperate and subtropical seas almost worldwide, missing only from the northern Pacific. Australians and New Zealanders call it tailor; in South Africa it goes by elf or shad. It is bluish green above and white below, with a forked tail and a single row of razor-edged teeth of equal size in each jaw. Adults usually measure 30 to 60 cm, and the largest reported reached 130 cm and 14 kg. Gnomefishes were once lumped into its family but now have their own, and fossil relatives include Lophar from the Late Miocene of Southern California.
Many populations migrate with the seasons. On the US East Coast, fish winter off Florida, vanish north by April, reach Massachusetts by June and head back south from October. The Black Sea stock swims through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles toward Turkey's Mediterranean coast each autumn, and Turkey bans fishing it from April 15 to Sept. 1 to protect spawning. Fry drift at the mercy of currents; the Gulf Stream can sweep young fish born south of Cape Hatteras up toward New England.
Adults eat menhaden, anchovies, shrimp and squid, and even their own young. Predators hunt them in return, from striped bass and tuna when small to sharks, seals and dolphins when grown. They can bite anglers badly, though New Jersey lifeguards report never seeing one bite a swimmer.
Heavy fishing hit the stock hard in the middle Atlantic in the late 1990s, but management had rebuilt it by 2007. The official record fish weighed 14.4 kg, caught by James Hussey near Hatteras. As food, bluefish spoils fast because of its oil, so it rarely travels far from where it is landed. It is rich in omega-3 fats but carries about 0.4 ppm of mercury on average, similar to albacore tuna, which is why the US FDA advises limiting how often young children and women of childbearing age eat it.
Source: Bluefish
