Mother of All Bluefish Landed on a WILD Day

This bluefish, the biggest we ever caught, measured
a whopping 40 inches.  It was caught on a Rebel
Jumpin Minnow.  It was one of over 60 big blues
landed today in a wild day of fishing.

We've landed some big bluefish over the years from shore and boat, but today yielded the biggest one I have ever seen. My brother Steve landed this Mother of All Bluefish, a 40 inch monster on the best day of fishing for blues we have ever had in June. The state record for blues is listed at 39 inches and 26 lbs.  While this fish bests the state record in length, I don't think it was fat enough to beat the weight.  I would estimate this fish went in the low to mid 20 lb. range. It was unhooked and released so the beast still swims in Gansett Bay.
This was an absolute wild day.  We found big blues stacked up in a corner of the Bay.  For hours we had a hit or a fish on just about every cast using a topwater plug.  Just about any topwater plug like poppers, Spooks and Jumpin Minnows were blasted by these super aggressive blues in the 8-15 lb. range.  The monster blue described above was caught on a black back Rebel Jumpin Minnow. There were so many blues that when we were reeling one to the boat, there were often four or five following the hooked fish trying to steal the plug from its mouth.
And, not only did we get blues.  We also landed half a dozen stripers from 22 inches to small keeper size. There were no small schoolies in this melee. I'm sure they would have been eaten by the ravenous blues.
All of our fish today were caught on plugs.  Interestingly, many fishermen were running all over the Bay today trying to snag or fish with pogies.  We found a ton of pogies miles from where we hit the blues.  But, there was not a single big fish under them and we saw no one land a fish on a menhaden.

This big blue has just clobbered a white popper. Topwater plugs such as poppers,
Spooks and Jumpin Minnows caught all the blues and stripers today.