With the first blasts of cooler air rolling down from the north, we get a taste of autumn as we say goodbye to 90+F degree days, shorter daylight hours, the beginning of migrations of various species, school starting up and just generally transition before the long, cold winter rushes upon us.
The backbays are in a transition time, with the warm temps, only smaller species can survive until the water cools and the larger predators, such as bluefish and striped bass, start setting up shop and blasting schools of bait along the sod banks or outflows.
{
Spot
Leiostomus xanthurus
(A.K.A. - Spot, Norfolk spot)
Key Distinguishing Markings:
- Spot have 12-15 dusky oblique bars on their upper side.
- They have a distinct dusky to black spot just behind the top of the gill opening on their body.
- Tail fin distinctly forked.
- Body rather deep and compressed.
- Mouth small and inferior.
- Maximum length of spot is 14 inches.
- Spot mature at ages two and three and lengths of seven to eight inches.
- Their maximum life span is about five years, although fish over three years of age are uncommon.
- Spot occur along the Atlantic coast in estuarine and coastal waters from the Gulf of Maine to Florida.
- However, they are most abundant from Chesapeake Bay south to South Carolina.
- They have been collected from the main stem and all tributaries of Chesapeake Bay.
- Spot have one of the most extensive distributions of any marine-estuarine fishes in the Bay.
This year really hasn't seen many spot in New Jersey.
However, we have seen some small fish called the northern kingfish:
Still awaiting the bulk of bluefish and stripers to come in.
In the meantime, some offshore critters called blackfish have started to show up in the inshore / backback rocks, mussel and barnacle beds.
(reference for spot: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/fishfacts/spot.asp)
