mackerel shoals part 2

[christian kimber]

Out on tuesday morning and saw a couple of nice shoals of mackerel moving so this time i had some lures and no missus or dog!

 

But no matter how much i tried all i caught was mackies,tried running a lure deep under them and all around. Varied my depths and changed lures but to no avail.

 

Noticed the mackies were chasing small sivler fish not eels, any idea what?

 

And would i have been better putting out a live joey under a float? or is it just that there is no bass shoaling the mackies?! any help would be great.

[H.A.]

The shoals of 'whitebait' are small sprats.

 

One of the problems for those trying to catch mackerel is that they get pretty pre-occupied with the size of their prey (as do most fish). You can run those dreadful 2/0 'mackerel feathers' through a marauding shoal and not pick them up.

 

The sprats are barely 3cm/1inch long, so I tend to tie my own small 'mylar' flash lures to size 4 hooks when they are feeding like this. Avoid casting the flimsy, smaller hokkai -types as they are generally tied with very light mono and the knots are suspect!!!

 

Regarding the bass .... they are stuffed with mackerel and hardly likely to hunt along sand beaches where the Solent mackerel are shoaled up. Best chances are very early and very late.

I've had two bass night sessions at Hayling this week and had just one run on a mackie head and guts!

 

You've got a better chance when you actually see the bass feeding over a reef or around a structure and then Dexter wedges, plugs and live 'joeys' come into their own.