Winter mackerel! The Good ol Days!

[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