Birds Baitfish school question
 

Yesterday I was outside the east Cameron jetty and started fishing under a small flock of birds. something had baitfish pushed to the surface in a big dark ball and would sometimes attack the ball on the surface. I started fishing with a gulp swimming mullet (simply what was tied on) and whatever had the bait balled up would bite the gulp in half just behind the hook. When I say bite it in half that is what I mean not pull or tear it. Any idea what had this bait ball? My thought based on the gulp being bit in half was probably some type of mackerel. The bad thing is had a guide boat push me off this school before I could change up tactics and maybe catch something.

shoulda layed the 8 on em... sounds like spanish mackeral

That's what I was thinking when I seen how my baits were being bitten cleanly in half. I didn't leave right away and did hang lures with one of them. After that I'd had enough I left before I got mad.

On Thursday, we identified two different species busting the bait out there as hardtails (blue runners) and specks. We would have worked harder to catch some if we'd seen spanish.

Perhaps bluefish

I hadn't considered blue runners. Will they cleanly soft plastics in half?

Dunno. The bull reds would not leave us alone long enough to throw plastics at them. We were more interested in the bull reds once we realized it wasn't spanish. But once the water gets clear like it has been, lots of interesting stuff moves through there. Could be anything toothy and aggressive. With all the bait that has been congregating there, the predators will be there too.

Lady fish

Lady fish

And more

Lady fish

No doubt there are lady fish out there, but do ladyfish regularly bite plastics in half? Never had that happen.

Could be Ladyfish but when I have gotten into them before they didn't bite the bait in half. But with saying that they did feel like ladyfish bites. Now I know I won't be wasting time in that situation again.

another good possibility

Bluefish. Definitely. They have smaller mouths and sharp teeth. Used to happen to me all the time on fourchon beach. Occasionally I would catch one.

Blue fish and lady fish both will tear a bait up but blue will cut it more uniformed

You can tell when blue fish are busting they make like a spitting noise and splash on top , not much of a spray like a lady fish does

Shhh. The man has spoken.

Ribbon fish

Snipe, i had the same thing happen in Southwest Pass a couple of weekends ago. it turned out to be specs and white trout about 8" long.

we settled into caldwell reef, current was rippin and small shrimp and baitfish were popping as well as birds. they started taking the tails off of anything we threw, cocahoes, gulp, even vudoos! I managed to snag a few after putting on a treble trailer hook i caught a spec. I switched to a purple chart vudoo, tail gone. white red, tail gone after 2 casts. i couldn't believe it. put on a natural (solid color) and reel as fast as i could and caught a few more whities. Decided that i already went through about $10 worth of lures on the little bastards and hauled a$$.

Could possibly be what tore you up.

sounds like it could have been a lot more than I thought it could have been. Thanks for all the input.