This is funny:
Just so you know, he was not fishing for “bluegills” This is a bluegill:
Bluegills live in fresh water and are like “sunfish” and “pumpkinseeds” and “crappies” etc. all of which are in the bass family.
Bluefish live in the ocean and roam along littoral regions in large schools. This is what large bluefish look like:
Of course, when one is fishing for bluefish, there is always the possibility of catching the fish that eats them, such as striped bass. Like this:
The striped bass is not in the “bass family” referred to above. Striped Bass are Moronidae, bluegills, largemouth bass, etc. are Centrarchidae.
Anyway, sometimes you catch a shark.
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Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
I was waiting for the shark to whip around and take his foot off.
Bull sharks have been documented in the Amazon as far inland as Iquitos, Peru. In the Mississippi, as far as Alton, IL. I don’t know that one has been caught on hook and line very far inland in the USA.
I used to fish for striped bass with my tree surgeon boss (many, many years ago). While fishing one day I witnessed a school of blue fish feeding on a school of bunkers. There were several small fishing boats in where the blues were feeding. It was a feeding frenzy over an area of about a third of an acre. My boss, who knew a lot about fish, said the blue fish work themselves up into such a state that they just rip into the bunkers without bothering to eat them. The water around the boats was alive with splashes and frothing. It was a sight I will never forget.
If anyone of those fishermen out there fell into the water I think he would have been bitten many times. I’ve seen one bite from a blue fish, it took a chunk out of a guy’s foot. That was after it landed in the boat and it wasn’t even a big one.
On Long Island in my youth (a very long time ago) we called the young blue fish, that haunted the many bays, “snappers.” But “bluegills” sounds familiar and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people used it to mean snappers/blue fish.
It has to be remembered that English is a language invented by Norman soldiers trying to get laid by Anglo-Saxon tavern wenches.
@ John Pieret
It was just off Lloyd’s Neck near Target Rock, 1968.
Snappers, of course, are a totally different thing in other places.
This particular reporter was almost certainly referring to the FW fish; this is Minnesota. But yes, what we all call fish is historically complex and quirky. Consider the Alwewife. I spent some time researching that … I did archaeology on the very spot that the Alewife was “named” …. There is not good explanation.
Now, can someone please explain to me the difference between a “cod” and a ‘scrod” and a “schrod” ?????