Rob Paxevanos gives us the

lowdown on the mighty

Spanish mackerel

Spanish mackerel are right up there as one

of my all time favourite saltwater species.

They’re a big, strong and incredibly fast fish

that look awesome, and are brilliant on the dinner

plate to boot!

In Australia the Spanish mackerel’s stronghold is in

the top half of the continent. They can be found

in water temperatures from roughly 21 degrees

Celsius right up to 35 degrees Celsius or more, but

definitely prefer somewhere between the 24 to 29

degree mark. When warm currents push south in

summer, ‘macky’ anglers in areas at the southern

parts of their range like Coffs Harbour on the east

coast and Geraldton on the west coast eagerly await

their arrival. The occasional school will venture

as far down as Mandurah on the west coast and

Bermagui on the east coast when strong summer

currents penetrate their furthest south.

Their return migration in winter is more

pronounced and just as eagerly awaited by anglers

in Tropical North Queensland, Northern WA and

the NT. When the migrating mass arrives in these

areas each season they are a pretty reliable catch.

I have had a healthy respect and fascination for

these fish since one ripped off with my brothers

hand when I was a little kid! I have since had the

privilege of fishing with some brilliant ‘mackerel’

skippers around the country and have learned a lot

along the way.

Once the Spanish mackerel arrive in an area

they can be found around reefs, wrecks, drop offs,

headlands, islands and pinnacles. But importantly,

if the current is running they are most often found

on the up current side of these structures. In fact,

one of the real tricks to finding them is to look for

‘pressure points’. This effectively means motoring

around, lures in tow of course, and seeing which

way the current is flowing over known mackerel

structures. The pressure point is the part of the

structure that faces the current and creates an

underwater ‘bow wave’ that the mackerel ‘surf ’

on. From here they duck out to intercept food as

it flows past.

Like all fish though there are exceptions and

sometimes large flat areas amongst the main coral

reefs can also be productive if the mackerel have

had a chance to ball up baitfish in their travels.

There are stacks of examples of this throughout

the Great Barrier Reef.

Using mono on ‘wire shy’ macks is fine ‘if ’ you lip hook the fish.

Some skippers like to troll between the pressure

points looking for the bait balls on the sounder and

scanning the water for feeding birds.

In the northern parts of WA the local pro

mackerel fishos target ‘mackerel lumps’, which are

effectively underwater mounds surrounded by vast

areas of relatively flat sea bed. These areas disturb

the main current and suck in both bait fish and

mackerel as they migrate along the coast.

When these areas have been unfished for long

periods the mackerel fishing can be brilliant, and

they will attack everything and anything that moves

past. Some of the ex-commercial mackerel fishos I

have spent time with in these areas will only make

one troll past a lump and if every single rod doesn’t

hook up their patience wears thin and they steam

off to the next spot.

This is a good strategy in remote areas, however

when you’re fishing closer to large towns with more

fishing pressure, or you are limited to where you

can get to due to winds, you simply have to fine

tune your techniques so you can catch the smaller

numbers of smarter fish.

Finding a deep hanging school on the sounder is a

good start. At this point you can hover over them

or anchor up and drop down many different types

of sinking lures to get a result. Looking through my

standard tackle kit there are lots of Williamson buck

tail jigs which work great on mackerel, but serve a

dual purpose as they snag less when dropped deep

for a reef fish. However the 20 to 65 gram metal

lures rigged with wire are better when specifically

jigging for mackerel.

It does pay to go into this scenario with an open

mind and plenty of back up plans though. For

example, around 40cm of single strand wire above

the lure is the norm and will stop bite offs, which

are common especially on the drop. However

if the school gets ‘wire wise’ and are feeding on

small baitfish my friends and I have made an art

of catching good numbers of mackerel using 30

pound fluorocarbon trace straight to a 40 gram

Williamson Gyro Spin. We basically drop the jig

down through the school and then burn it back up

past them.

This is an extremely exciting way to catch

mackerel, and sure, you lose a few lures, but a

standard 6kg mackerel has some hefty fillets that

can feed a big family many times over!

This is straight forward: Put a pilchard, squid or

garfish on a 7/0 set of ganged hooks with 40cm of

Headlands, islands,

reefs, or anything that

forms a pressure point

is a good place to start.

Tools of the trade for trolling -

the bucktail jig is kept ready to

drop down for a double hookup.

Robbie Fowler and Rob Paxevanos

with a 14kg mackerel trolled up late in

the afternoon.

wire above it. This is commonly called a floater. If

there are enough hands on board a great technique

is to put out a floater and put another bait slightly

deeper using a ball sinker above the wire. Set the

drag on strike and these will look after themselves

while you experiment with lures to see what works

best on the day.

Baits can be trolled very effectively. The most

common set up is a garfish on ganged hooks and

you can ask your local BCF store about all the

different ways there are to make this rig. However

with the quality of lures and non stretch braid lines

available these days, you can easily catch more

fish without the fuss of rigging baits and with less

ongoing expense. Indeed, some of my favourite

trolling lures have caught dozens of mackerel and

are still going strong. Furthermore, when starting

out, trolling lures is possibly the easiest technique of

all, and really suits your average small boat owner.

I have even managed to get many a yachty to catch

mackerel by trolling lures while under sail.

Sunset is prime

time for mackerel,

especially the big

ones.

Rob and celebrity DJ Carl Cox with an XL

Spanish caught on a Rapala X Rap.

Jason Bourke with a solid

mack caught on a Gyro Spin.

My favourite lure by far is the Rapala X Rap

Magnum 30, which will get down as deep as 10

metres. If trolling above 6 knots you will need a

15 to 24kg outfit to handle these lures. They pull a

lot of water. Despite trying new lures all the time,

they are still the most consistent producer and have

scored me countless mackerel of all sizes from WA

right around to NSW and back.

Troll at around 6 knots with one X Rap just

10 metres back under the wash, and the other

50 metres back to get down deeper. Braid will

maximize your hook up rate on these lures due to

its non stretch qualities.

Note that X Rap Mag 20’s are a great alternative.

They get down around 6 metres and can be trolled

on rods rated at around 10kg, because they don’t

pull as much water as the Mag 30’s. A shallow

running X Rap placed 50 metres back completes

the spread. These pull less water again so you can

run them on lighter outfits rated at around say

6kg. From here you simply zip around the pressure

points, lumps or bait schools and when you pass

some mackerel, hang on!

Mackerel are fair fighters and stay high in the water

column so you can catch huge ones on light tackle

in some scenarios. However if the sharks are about

the ball game changes dramatically because you

have to pull your fish in quickly before they chomp

it.

If the mackerel are the standard 4 to 6 kilo

school size and the sharks are not thick then 6 kilo

tackle is fine and lots of fun to boot. Indeed I often

use one of my own Fishing Australia 701 SWM

rods which comes spooled with 6kg mono. They

are available at BCF, and at not much over $100

are ideal for the task.

If the average mackerel is 7 to 15kg, or the

sharks are thick, I use the Fishing Australia 601

BRM outfit spooled with 15kg Suffix braid. This

outfit has lots of grunt and can easily land a 10kg

mackerel in 5 minutes. With any spinning set up

you will need to learn a smooth lift and drop rod

action, which is a fish killer and takes the pressure

off the reel’s gears.

If the mackerel are 15kg and up, or the sharks

are thick, then go up to something like an overhead

Okuma Solterra spooled with 24kg braid and a

matching 24kg rod.

I like to get the first mackerel in quickly to reduce

the amount of lactic acid build-up, which further

improves the already high quality of their flesh.

Dispatch, bleed and ice the fish immediately after

landing.

One word of warning while on this topic, larger

mackerel in some areas can present the risk of the

sometimes deadly ciguatera poisoning. Anything

above 15kg is risky, and in some areas much smaller

specimens can be dangerous. If in doubt there is a

product around called cigua test which is used to

check the flesh for ciguatera.

A 6kg outfit is fine (if you don’t

have to race the sharks).

Again this comes down to the size of mackerel and

where you are catching them. You can get away

with 80 pound fluorocarbon straight to the X Raps

on the school sized fish, and on heavy fished ‘wire

wise’ schools this works a treat. However if the

lure gets swallowed by a bigger mackerel you can

quickly kiss your $30 or so bucks goodbye.

To protect against this, around 30kg single strand

wire is the norm for trolling up macks in the 7kg to

15kg class. Any heavier wire and you will definitely

notice less bites over time. If there are some stonker

sized macks around and you need heavy drag to

beat the sharks use 100kg wire minimum. A 40kg

mackerel has a pretty big mouth and can sometimes

swallow your average lure or bait in one bite. If you

use lighter wire all you will get is a savage ratchet

burst and then a limp line.

Thankfully, big macks often bite when visibility is

low so they won’t shy off the heavier trace. On light

drags you can easily land a 40kg macky on 30kg

single strand wire.

While schoolies will happily bite X Raps throughout

the day, big mackerel are best caught at sunrise,

sunset and night regardless of the lure or bait used.

If all else fails return at sunset to the best spot you

found during the day and you will rarely miss.

Rob and actor Peter Phelps with

yet other X Rap macky.