Overview
While new wonder baits seem to hit the shelves on a weekly basis where most forms of coarse fishing are concerned, it’s rare to find something different on the menu for pike anglers.
Now a new species tipped to be the next big thing in the deadbait stakes has hit our shores.
They look like a cross between a mackerel and a garfish and are found all over the Pacific from Japan to the Gulf of Alaska.
They’re known as saury, sanma, knife fish or mackerel pike, depending which country you’re in and universally prized for their eating qualities.
When bait dealers serving the sea angling market began importing them earlier this year, they gained a new nickname and a reputation for being far oilier than fish baits such as mackerel and herring.
Blueys soon started catching and featuring in the sea mags, so it wasn’t long before pike anglers gave them a spin.
They look the part, with their dark blue backs and silvery flanks, dotted with random blue blotches.
While they don’t smell of anything in particular other than vaguely fishy out of the water, they certainly give off a lot of oil when you sling them out.
Like farmed rainbow trout, the oil seems to keep coming out of them for ages. But at around £ 1 a piece are they worth spending your hard-earned on..?
My first pike on one came as I was reeling in to recast, so we won’t count that even though it was a double.
Fished alongside other baits in the first few weeks of the campaign, blueys didn’t seem any better or any worse than any other sea dead.
They catch, but so do sardines, mackerel, herrings and just about anything else you care to stick a hook into on its day.
PAC-approved bait firms Lucebaits and Baitbox are both selling them this winter.
