Small fishing line for on the boat.

As one who used to fish for mackerel a lot down in the West Country (Lyme Bay) a rod is a pain, use a hand line and a long trace of ( coloured) feathers with a good weight on the end. Trick is watch for the gulls diving and feeding on the whitebait the mackerel are chasing, and do a slow troll through that area pulling the line up a few inches, letting it drop back and so on until you get a (usually multiple) strike. Its called jigging. Don't do this from an inflatable though, a 10/20 hook feather line can get a bit unmanageable and guess where they can wind up? The easiest way is tie the line in the cockpit and just jig it up and down as you troll round the area. Vary your depth, anything from 15-20 feet and longer. Best of luck, God knows how many the french have left by now! Good fun though. Nice for breakfast too!
 
If you are fishing off a boat, when shoals of mackerel are around, you can go either expensive, with a rod and line, spinner, paravane etc. Or you can just use some cod line on a wooden frame with half dozen hooks about a foot apart and a lead weight. You can ensure a better catch by tying to each hook a strip from an old potato crisp packet, the shiny bit is very attractive to mackerel and garfish.
If the mackerel are shoaling, you will catch loads, if they are not you need to look for where seabirds are congregating near the surface.
 
Used to use a rod for occasional mackeral fishing but now use a handline,much easier on a small boat.Use a crabbing line you can buy for a pound or two at the beach shops,cut off the hooks and tie on mackeral feathers,dirt cheap.
 
Unless you need to cast then I would say not to bother with a rod. Like the others said, a handline is fine most of the time.

I have a home made paravane for trolling when underway, towed from about 20m of nylon cord fed from a bucket, so it's easy to take in and let out without a reel.

I also use a cheapo telescopic rod for spinning, and for fishing from rocks.

Total cost of all the gear, including lures etc - about £25 /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I like to use a rod as it's more fun that way especially for the kids. When plenty of mackeral are around you can catch them with almost anything. The problem I find is that once you have them in the boat they shite and bleed and leave scales all over the place. What I do is flatten the barbs on the hooks with a pair of pliers, you may loose one or two but means I can easily hold them over a bucket which is hanging over the pushpit rail and with one hand I can hold the hook and unhook the fish at the same time allowing it to fall into the bucket. Same goes if any are too small hold them over the side and unhook and allow them to fall back into the sea
If you want to kill them quickly hold the fish round the belly upside down with one hand and put a finger and thumb into each gill and bend the head back untill it's neck snaps. This is best done over the side of the boat as it can get messy.
 
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In a bucket? By the time you get back in you'll have rigid banana-shaped fish!

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The whole point is to eat them on passage. The fresher the better. When really fresh, they often banana up under the grill anyway.
 
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