Where have all the Mackerel gone???

[chrisdonna]

Just had two days off the North Wales coast at Barmouth and despite the reef being covered with white bait not one Mackerel caught.
Went to all the favourite spots and not even my state of the art Garmin picked up a shoal in the whole area.
My mate had plenty of bass and even I had a few but the disappearance of the Macky was a surprise.
This has been going on all year after talking to the locals.
Any one else having this issue??
Chrisd

[Brian Carragher]

Just the same on the north east coast, mackerel very scarce and patchy with lots of small mini fish amongst them

Seems like the Scottish stock has been hit pretty hard over the winter

[Kev Berry]

Factory ships and mega trawlers

[Stewlaws]

Little short of **** n pillage

[piker al]

Factory ships and mega trawlers

Hoovered up to make pellets for the fish farms!!

[davelumb]

Has Nev got them all?

[Alex Fox]

Was out at sea last week, was heaving with mackerel ... they are all down South

[Pinkie]

Just had some for dinner

[Mike J]

Was out at sea last week, was heaving with mackerel ... they are all down South

Shhhhh.

Saying that will bring all those northerners down and they will clear us out of Hobnobs

.

[Bob Watson]

They were there in numbers today, had a boatful along with about 20 cod to 5lb.

My mate was speaking to some local anglers and the mackies have been difficult to get through to get down for cod for a few days now. Some proper big specimens too!

[Will Smith]

That is good to hear Bob, they have been a bit hitty-missy further north.

Will.

[Bob Watson]

That is good to hear Bob, they have been a bit hitty-missy further north.

Will.

Working their way up. We've had hundreds of Dolphins from Whitby up to Hartlepool aswell, they must be following the feed in. Saw a couple of what I believe were Porpoises today, I'm not too sure of the difference but my mate assured me they were!

[Alex Fox]

They were there in numbers today, had a boatful along with about 20 cod to 5lb.

My mate was speaking to some local anglers and the mackies have been difficult to get through to get down for cod for a few days now. Some proper big specimens too!

20 Cod !!! bloody fantastic

[Pinkie]

Plenty of mackerel on the west coast of Scotland. A friend of mine is just back from fishing up there and had plenty up to near 2lb, lucky beggar!

[Bob Watson]

They were there in numbers today, had a boatful along with about 20 cod to 5lb.

My mate was speaking to some local anglers and the mackies have been difficult to get through to get down for cod for a few days now. Some proper big specimens too!

20 Cod !!! bloody fantastic

Spoke to my mate since, counting how many we each (three of us) took, it was actually only 18

[Will Smith]

That is good to hear Bob, they have been a bit hitty-missy further north.

Will.

Working their way up. We've had hundreds of Dolphins from Whitby up to Hartlepool aswell, they must be following the feed in. Saw a couple of what I believe were Porpoises today, I'm not too sure of the difference but my mate assured me they were!

Funnily enough Bob, Last two times out and have seen what I thought were porpoise on both occasion, quite small and almost black in colour and quite a few of them, I have never seen them before at Amble.

Will.

[Will Smith]

Plenty of mackerel on the west coast of Scotland. A friend of mine is just back from fishing up there and had plenty up to near 2lb, lucky beggar!

Nothing of that size for us unfortunately yet, fingers crossed though.

Will.

[stubbojo]

been in wales for 4 weeks , mackerel everywhere, and bigger than normally caught , must be down to the earlier lock downs , as the boats did not get out as much , maybe they have grown that bit bigger .........
they have been bigger than i can remember , and they are stuffed with whitebait ....some knocking 2lb

[stubbojo]

Was out at sea last week, was heaving with mackerel ... they are all down South

Shhhhh.

Saying that will bring all those northerners down and they will clear us out of Hobnobs

.

made me laugh mike the word hobnob , that was my code word for bass , when i caught a good bass i would radio my mate ,who was fishing another mark
i would end the conversation with just having a brew and a hobnob ........and he knew that i had caught a bass ...
didnt take the other boats listening in to fathom out what its meaning was ..........ten boats would come flying in on my mark .......
i do quite well on the bass over the years and word gets out .....and one guy used to shadow me all day long on his boat... like a german u-boat watching me from afar with his binos then he would pass over my spot and mark it on his G.P.S ........mind you i did throw him some duff marks ....

[Mike J]

Was out at sea last week, was heaving with mackerel ... they are all down South

Shhhhh.

Saying that will bring all those northerners down and they will clear us out of Hobnobs

.

made me laugh mike the word hobnob , that was my code word for bass , when i caught a good bass i would radio my mate ,who was fishing another mark
i would end the conversation with just having a brew and a hobnob ........and he knew that i had caught a bass ...
didnt take the other boats listening in to fathom out what its meaning was ..........ten boats would come flying in on my mark .......
i do quite well on the bass over the years and word gets out .....and one guy used to shadow me all day long on his boat... like a german u-boat watching me from afar with his binos then he would pass over my spot and mark it on his G.P.S ........mind you i did throw him some duff marks ....

I had a hooked marlin photographed while fully airborne with my boat and the angler in the background, it didn't matter to me but I was pleased for the angler, however for the locals it was the height of fame.
From that day onward whenever I went trolling I always had company either running parallel or watching me on a radar. When you raise a marlin and it follows but doesn't strike the lures its normal to run over the same area a few more times so thats what I did over blank ground to lead them astray. But it ruined my days so I gave up trolling on my boat and went back to bottom fishing (and what happened then was worse than that b marlin).

Big tide today and tmrw so I will be on the flood with a few specials.

.

[spincityfan]

Had some decent ones on a charter boat this weekend

[Mike J]

Had some decent ones on a charter boat this weekend

Ooo Channels, lovely for the pan.

How did the rest of the trip go?
Port and boat name?

.

[spincityfan]

Had some decent ones on a charter boat this weekend

Ooo Channels, lovely for the pan.

How did the rest of the trip go?
Port and boat name?

.

Yeah they were really tasty, too good for the Pike

Sorry I should have said, we went on Pegasus from Lyme Regis. We were after the Bream but we only had a few. I had about 20 Pout and a few doggies. Someone had a 25lb Eel but it was hard work. A couple of Wrasse came out as well.

[Mike J]

Had some decent ones on a charter boat this weekend

Ooo Channels, lovely for the pan.

How did the rest of the trip go?
Port and boat name?

.

Yeah they were really tasty, too good for the Pike

Sorry I should have said, we went on Pegasus from Lyme Regis. We were after the Bream but we only had a few. I had about 20 Pout and a few doggies. Someone had a 25lb Eel but it was hard work. A couple of Wrasse came out as well.

Thanks.
Next time take some soy and try sliced sashimi from a fillet. Just remember to not to do it with your bait knife.

A 25lb conger hard work

Where's Kev!

.

[spincityfan]

Had some decent ones on a charter boat this weekend

Ooo Channels, lovely for the pan.

How did the rest of the trip go?
Port and boat name?

.

Yeah they were really tasty, too good for the Pike

Sorry I should have said, we went on Pegasus from Lyme Regis. We were after the Bream but we only had a few. I had about 20 Pout and a few doggies. Someone had a 25lb Eel but it was hard work. A couple of Wrasse came out as well.

Thanks.
Next time take some soy and try sliced sashimi from a fillet. Just remember to not to do it with your bait knife.

A 25lb conger hard work

Where's Kev!

.

Lol I meant the fishing was hard work, not the eel

[stubbojo]

Was out at sea last week, was heaving with mackerel ... they are all down South

Shhhhh.

Saying that will bring all those northerners down and they will clear us out of Hobnobs

.

made me laugh mike the word hobnob , that was my code word for bass , when i caught a good bass i would radio my mate ,who was fishing another mark
i would end the conversation with just having a brew and a hobnob ........and he knew that i had caught a bass ...
didnt take the other boats listening in to fathom out what its meaning was ..........ten boats would come flying in on my mark .......
i do quite well on the bass over the years and word gets out .....and one guy used to shadow me all day long on his boat... like a german u-boat watching me from afar with his binos then he would pass over my spot and mark it on his G.P.S ........mind you i did throw him some duff marks ....

I had a hooked marlin photographed while fully airborne with my boat and the angler in the background, it didn't matter to me but I was pleased for the angler, however for the locals it was the height of fame.
From that day onward whenever I went trolling I always had company either running parallel or watching me on a radar. When you raise a marlin and it follows but doesn't strike the lures its normal to run over the same area a few more times so thats what I did over blank ground to lead them astray. But it ruined my days so I gave up trolling on my boat and went back to bottom fishing (and what happened then was worse than that b marlin).

Big tide today and tmrw so I will be on the flood with a few specials.

.

reminds me when i went to gran Canaries years back ,hired a boat ,well a huge cameraman type boat which belonged to a local millionaire in pursuit of marlin
there was four anglers on the boat that day including myself , and like you say we were trolling huge lures behind the boat ,very exciting stuff waiting for your lure to be taken
we had drawn numbers on each lure , so if your lure got taken in the chair you went ......to cut a long storey short we had a huge marlin come behind the lures on the surface the captain reckoned it was a monster as he could tell from the fins and tail fins in length sadly it dispersed and was not seen again that day chance lost really
but got chatting to one of the other anglers who regularly goes for marlin ...and he had only caught 2 in 20 years fishing for them and that was in Madeira Spain i think ....... but we had a very enjoyable day catching smallish tuna 30lb fish and bonito and a few sharks

[Kev Berry]

Had some decent ones on a charter boat this weekend

Ooo Channels, lovely for the pan.

How did the rest of the trip go?
Port and boat name?

.

Yeah they were really tasty, too good for the Pike

Sorry I should have said, we went on Pegasus from Lyme Regis. We were after the Bream but we only had a few. I had about 20 Pout and a few doggies. Someone had a 25lb Eel but it was hard work. A couple of Wrasse came out as well.

Thanks.
Next time take some soy and try sliced sashimi from a fillet. Just remember to not to do it with your bait knife.

A 25lb conger hard work

Where's Kev!

.

They just straps Mike

[chrisdonna]

Just got back from North Wales and I didn`t fish for Mackerel as I had my Bass head on (still learning although I did have 15 with a 6 pounder trolling) but my two mates bagged a few Macky. Still not as prolific as previous years. Maybe they are late coming in???
Chrisd

[stubbojo]

Just got back from North Wales and I didn`t fish for Mackerel as I had my Bass head on (still learning although I did have 15 with a 6 pounder trolling) but my two mates bagged a few Macky. Still not as prolific as previous years. Maybe they are late coming in???
Chrisd

i did notice when i was there last week the bass was not in numbers as the previous year , mind you i did start i bit earlier this season , i find September better for the bigger fish.............. to live baits....

[chrisdonna]

Stubbojo,
I caught more because I fished with better lures in the right places and used a different trolling technique. Overall we had over 30 Bass of all sizes but my 6 pounder looked a monster for my inexperienced eyes.
I think I it easy to think Bass fishing is easy until you actually go out there and a feeling of isolation comes over you and the realisation that fish/Bass aren`t everywhere but in specific spots, a bit like pike fishing really.
Hope you had a good trip.
Chris Donovan