Habitat:
Bluefish inhabit both inshore and offshore areas of coastal regions, with the young fish (first year of life) called "snappers" often frequent estuaries and river mouths.  This species normally travel in large schools which may contain up to several thousand individuals.  Bluefish display an annual migration pattern that is keyed to the seasonal warming and cooling of coastal waters.  Larger fish initially inhabit deeper waters but move progressively shoreward into shallow areas as the summer progresses.  Although many adult fish migrate southward during the fall their majority migratory movement appears to be offshore toward the warmer deep waters of the continental shelf.

Diet:
Snappers eat a variety of small-bodied animals such as shrimp, small lobsters, crabs, larval fish and larval mollusks.  Adult bluefish are opportunistic feeders, commonly focusing upon schooling species such as menhaden, squid, sand eels, herring, mackerel, alewives, scup, butterfish and cunners.  Bluefish generally feed in schools, actively pursuing prey in tidal rips or in inshore shallows where food in easier to catch.  The feeding behavior of this species is legendary!   Bluefish are reputed to dash wildly about within schools of prey species, biting, crippling and killing numerous small fish that do not get eaten.   They frequently drive schools of prey species into shallow inshore areas where it becomes easier to cripple or catch fish that are trying to escape.