Metal casting spoons
$6–12 each
Heavy enough to throw a mile into a blitz and retrieve fast. Both species want it moving quickly.
Search for: casting spoon saltwater 1 oz
Bluefish and Spanish mackerel
Fast, toothy, and often right off the beach or in the inlet. The easiest offshore-ish fishing on this coast.
Casting to a blitz
Gotcha plug
$6–10 each
The pier-and-inlet standard on this coast. Fast, jerky retrieve. Spanish and blues both eat it.
Search for: Gotcha plug lure saltwater
Light wire or heavy fluoro leader
$8–15
Bluefish will cut mono instantly. Wire costs you a few bites from Spanish, so a lot of people run 40–50 lb fluoro and accept losing some lures.
Search for: single strand wire leader fishing
Trolling for Spanish
Clarkspoon behind a planer
spoon $6–10 · planer $20–30
A #00 or #1 Clarkspoon on a small planer, trolled 5–7 knots, is the most reliable Spanish setup there is. Almost boring how well it works.
Search for: Clarkspoon 00 planer trolling
Worth knowing
- Look for birds working. Both species push bait to the surface and the birds find them first.
- Bluefish bleed heavily and don't keep well — ice them straight away or let them go.
- Spanish are best trolled fast. If you're catching blues instead, speed up.
Before you keep anything
Generic product types, not recommendations of a particular brand. Nothing here is sponsored and there are no affiliate links. Sizes, seasons and limits change — the official pages above are the authority, not this list.