How to catch something other than mackeral?

[agurney]

Using a paravane I can almost guarantee a Pollack if I go over a shallow spit. The depth needs to be 15 feet or less with a lot of kelp.
The pollack are returned alive, I don't particularly enjoy them.
Maybe find different ways to cook your mackerel? they are lovely smoked .. although they do repeat a bit.

re. timing, my experience is that they start migrating north up the west coast early July. By September there are only small juveniles in the west, however the adults have doubled in size and are heading south down the North Sea.

 

[[3889]]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_dIVuDyPIevMktIY2VOYkZIYms/edit?usp=docslist_api

we caught this on a Decathlon 5cm mackerel lure

 

[Sybarite]

A bit further on than you, but not a lot. As I understand it you mostly are asking too much. You can catch poolock by towing a lure over broken ground with the lure at the bottom, but mackerel are both fast and greedy which is why you can cath them with a lure doing 4 knots.

The reality of fishing is that its more skilled than just lobbing something over board and to have real success you need to know a bit about fishy habits and be willing to do things like loitering above wrecks and rocks and sandbanks. I catch bass ( a few a year) but I do that using as bait what they are eating at the time and I do it anchored.

The biggest mackeral I have caught was when sailing at more than 7 knots.

 

[fisherman]

A local keen angler caught a very big cod on a highly polished Morris 1000 door handle.

 

[KellysEye]

I used swimming lures, they have a chin plate so wiggle like a fish. I never used a paravane all fish, except flatfish, will come to the surface if they see a fish. Different fish take different coloured lures at different times of year. Also the same fish can choose a particular colour for example I had a red and white lure out and a blue and yellow out the mackerel only went for the blue and yellow one. So if you are not catching anything on passage its worth trying a different colour lure, ideally have two lines out as I did.

 

[Lon nan Gruagach]

I got a pollack in kreel pot, was about half as long again as the pot.

 

[gus]

I got a pollack in kreel pot, was about half as long again as the pot.

Not a lot of fish to catch these days. Compared to the figures for 1937 there are now 6% of the fish now left in the sea.

 

[Neil]

Not a lot of fish to catch these days. Compared to the figures for 1937 there are now 6% of the fish now left in the sea.

1937 was just yesterday. There were complaints to the crown about the damage to the seabed caused by trawling in the 12th century. There are medieval woodcut prints of fishermen be able to stand a halberd in the water, held up by the density of fish. A 17th century report details how a ship failed to make port in Newfoundland because it couldn't make way through the shoals of cod. Incidentally, a cod can grow up to 60-70 kg. When did you last see one that size on the fishmongers slab?

If you get the chance, read "The unnatural history of the sea", by Prof Callum Roberts.

We have been saying that the fishing was much better in our father's time, for a thousand years.

There aren't plenty more fish in the sea........

 

[GrahamD]

Maybe find different ways to cook your mackerel? they are lovely smoked .. although they do repeat a bit.

Our favourite way to cook mackerel on the boat is to very gently poach newly caught fish in salted water, for about 5-10mins (depending on size). The fish ends up being much less oily, so cooking is cleaner with less residual smell. Serve with a slice of beetroot and a little horseradish sauce.

 

[stranded]

Of course the joy of fishing is that you never know. I have just this minute caught a 4lb sea bass in the oddest way. Chucking out one of those rubber fishy things that look a bit like a small mackerel off the back of the boat casting as close as I can parallel to the mid river pontoon in the Beaulieu River. Got it wrong and it landed on the pontoon. Walked up to lure and chucked it in the water. By the time I got back on board the rod was almost bent double. Need to dig the cobb out!