Congratulations to one of our Jr. Old Salt members Brooke Bailey for winning this weeks photo of the week Spanish Mackerel. Brooke loves to fish and is one the water every chance she can get …. doesn’t matter what she is fishing for, she is there.
Spanish Mackerel is our second species in the upcoming King of the Beach Tournament. To see more on the King of the Beach – click here.
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Top Tactics for Spring Spanish Mackerel
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The “prince” of mackerel can be the king of nearshore water along the coast during the spring months. Here’s how the experts catch ‘em.
I had always considered trolling to be the only serious method for catching Spanish mackerel, until one afternoon at dusk, lounging at the beach with the kids, I noticed a single, silvery fish bolt out of the water like a porpoise, just on the far side of the inshore sandbar.
When a second fish repeated the feat, I recognized it as a Spanish mackerel, and I immediately sent one of my daughters back to our cottage for one of my fishing rods. She didn’t bring the correct one back, but even armed with a 6-foot spinning rod tipped with a lure more likely to fool a speckled trout, I waded out knee deep, started casting and, in five minutes, had two Spanish mackerel flopping in the sand behind me.
From that point on, I have rarely pushed a sand spike into the beach to hold a big surf “heaver” rod for bottom-fishing. A number of different casting and spinning rods have made the trek with me into waist-deep water as I tried to reach a pod of Spanish mackerel feeding 100 yards off the surf.
Of course, the great majority of Spanish mackerel are still caught from boats trolling spoons anywhere from a half-mile to five miles off the beach, but under the right circumstances, you can stay right on the beach and still catch these fish.
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