For terminal tackle, go light. Try making your own rigs using single strand No. 3 or No. 4 wire; haywire twist an inexpensive beak-style bait holder hook in 1/0 or larger size, depending on the size of the bait you're putting on it and the size of the blues you encounter. If the fish are large, super-size the rig with No. 5 wire and a 4/0 hook. Add a barrel swivel on the other end with a wire leader no longer than 6 inches.

All you're looking for is a little tooth protection, so that's plenty of length. Make some rigs with "bleeding leader" wire, red nylon coated 1X flexible cable in 30-pound-test. Sometimes the red triggers strikes when the fish are playing hard to get.

Don't forget to take an ample supply of lures, too, including diamond jigs, crocodile spoons and large bucktails, swimming plugs and poppers in a variety of sizes. You'd be amazed how often you can get blues into a chum slick and then catch them on artificials!

Do your homework the day before. Make some inquiries about where the blues have been caught most recently. Bluefish will frequently settle into well-known areas and stay put as boats come day after day dumping chum and bait in the water. There are dozens of such spots near my home port, and if one area has been producing, then that's where I start fishing first. However, there are also many inshore lumps, bumps, ridges and other structure that hold bluefish throughout the summer and fall. Sometimes you can get on one of these smaller pieces of structure and have the fish all to yourself.

GET SET!
Start your day early. Try and get out before the charter and head boats leave and before crowds of private boats show up on the bluefish grounds, so you'll be able to anchor on prime real estate. When you arrive, do a sonar search of the area to see if you can locate a school of bluefish. If there is a focal point like a high spot or other prominent structure, chances it will hold fish, so figure out how the wind and current is going to affect the boat. Anchor so your boat comes to rest just upcurrent from the structure.

If fish are not concentrated and you want to get their attention quickly, you can jump-start your slick by running a few hundred yards downcurrent from where you are going to anchor, put your chum bucket over the side and drag it as you run the boat slowly back to the anchoring point. Leave the bucket in the water as you anchor and by the time the boat settles into place, you'll have a well-developed slick to attract fish.

If you dislike thawing chum out on deck, making a soup and then ladling it out by hand, then get yourself one of those vinyl-coated canvas chum bags and simply dump the bucket of frozen chum (with the top off) upside down in the bag. Hang it by a line over the side, tied to one spring line cleat so it dunks in and out of the water as the boat rocks.