Winter mackerel! The Good ol Days!

[Detour66]

Since there was a lot of talk about Boston Mackerel aka Atlantic Mackerel on my last post I thought I would do a follow up on them. Once upon a time packed party boats would go out a few miles in the ocean and load up on Boston Mackerel this time of year. Cold weather, winds it didn't matter they went out and caught! Burlap bags where full of fish. Not many coolers used back then this time of year. It was pretty much none stop catching once you found them. I'm sure all the old timers like myself know about this great fishing but I am writing this for younger fisherman who didn't experince it and had questions on my previous post. Back then the party boats went out pretty much till they were iced in! How time have changed! If anyone wants to chime in be my guest! It's that time of year!

https://www.thefisherman.com/article...-good-ol-days/

[NJ219bands]

Mackerel fishing 🎣 on the Shamrock from Point Pleasant was lots of fun back in the good old days.

[jbigtime]

I remember mackerel in January and again in April until the blues showed up. We stumbled on a few mackerel while ling fishing one time and then beat up on them for a month solid. This was in the mid to late 90’s….. Good times…

[Ol Pedro]

I got a couple good years of jigging Boston's on the old Gambler. We would run sometimes in sporty conditions up to the Ambrose Channel until we read them. Surge tubes with diamond jigs on the bottom. Fast drifts were the norm. We would catch a few Stripers on our diamond jigs from time to time. We also fished live Macks for for them with some success. Had one trip in calm spring weather where we crushed them at the one mile marker filling totes in the sunshine.

[bunker dunker]

we would hit the dauntless for the magic hour trip back in the day and catch
mackerel,herring,whiting and ling.you only needed a few jigs and some teasers.
that was great fishing

[hartattack]

A blast from the past from Leif the Mackeral Maven:
https://www.njfishing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29660

[Brewlugger]

We would do a trip every year in early April out of Barnegat to fill our bait freezer on a 20ft boat with just a radio and a compass no fishfinder. Would go to the range buoy start drifting and bailing. It was alot of fun and at times Whiting were in the mix.

[bulletbob]

They were fun to catch,, very scrappy.. however, back in the day, most guys were using "'boat poles".. Heavy pool cue like rods, with heavy Penn conventional reels, and they fish were simply hoisted aboard 4 at a time, with no ability to show their game.. It was meat fishing.. To me the "meat" wasn't that great.. You would broil one or two, maybe make some psuedo"tuna salad" out of one or two.. then what when you had 50 or more of them?... They froze horribly and in those days most guys were not using vacuum freezer bags.. A lot of those fish were wasted, or perhaps used as bait or even fertilizer.. If they reappear, I think guys would appreciate them more than we did years ago, use light one handed spinning rods, with a small metal, and maybe 1 teaser, and have a blast catching one or two at a time on appropriate tackle.. In those days I rarely went just for macks, maybe once or twice. I typically caught them along with Whiting and Ling in springtime. i hope they make a comeback, but sadly I have my doubts..Even if stocks do build up again they would get mopped up quickly by the netters, and in a year or two they would be gone again...... bob

[bunker dunker]

no all of us.we would bring our ultra lights with small jigs and spoons go up in the bow and have a blast.my Dad and grandfather would use the meat sticks and my
brother and i would have a blast.like bonito fishing.

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by bunker dunker

no all of us.we would bring our ultra lights with small jigs and spoons go up in the bow and have a blast.my Dad and grandfather would use the meat sticks and my
brother and i would have a blast.like bonito fishing.

yeah, a few guys did that, but in my day most everyone wanted to "load up".. Load up for what I don't know, but I guess guys that did a lot crabbing, or fishing where chunk bait is used could certainly take a few dozen to freeze.. I thought they were ok to eat, kind of a strong oily fish that worked well when prepared in certain ways, but personally after one or two meals, I was done with them.. Always preferred Whiting and Ling in those days...