What I speared so far this year in New England

[hyeparis]

Hello, guys! Wanted to share a few pics of what I speared so far in waters off RI and MA in New England.
The fish on these pics include from left to right
Photo 1. Trigger fish, some black fish (tautog) and blue fish (silver tail sticking out at the lower part of the pack) and scup (small silver fish on the left)
Photo 2. Striped bass and black fish.

 

[foxfish]

Wow fantastic spearing my friend! (& the first time I see you without a hat)

 

[hyeparis]

Thank you! I decided to reaffirm my Armenian Karabakh origins on these photos by wearing the T-shirt on Photo 3 with the flag rather than the hat)))

 

[Old Man Dave]

Nice one mate. We don't see a lot of reports on spearing in USA on here, especially North America. How about a little story to go with your catches. Also any idea of weights? What do all those fish taste like?

Dave.

 

[hyeparis]

Sure! From my one year of experience: Fish hang out where there is some structure, rocks, etc. Blackfish just stays in the rocks while such fish, as trigger fish, stripers and bluefish move around. Smaller stripers and smaller blue fish follow schools of bait in shallow waters - 5- meters while bigger stripers stay deeper - 10 meters or deeper, preferrably where there is sudden change in depth. They also love to hang around underwater rocks, which are 10 or more meters tall and which have tips sticking out of water when the ocean is choppy - because bait gets confused in white water created by collision of waves against rocks and they just snap them. They also follow schools of blue fish, which eat everything that comes their way, so if you see blue fish, chances are that stripers will follow.

 

[spaghetti]

Bluefish (pomatomus saltator) we have them here too. The funny (or scary) thing about them is that when they attack a prey, they don't eat the whole fish: they just bite off a chunk of it, leaving the rest in place. You'll often find pieces of fish on the way of a bluefish gangbang attack against, say, a school of mullets.
Maybe the stripers there follow the bluefish so to eat up the left chunks of their victims?

 

[hyeparis]

Yes, Spaghetti, that's exactly what stripers do! You can also tell there is a school of bluefish if there are seagulls concentrating above a spot