Mackeral Problems

[Jason_L]

I was fishing for Mackeral early saturday morning throwing pilchards out and reeling them in slowly.

My problem is we could see the mackeral following the bait in, coming up having a look, but backing out at the last second, they just weren't striking the bait.

Is this because of something i was doing wrong, or just simply the mackeral weren't on the bite.

Daytime temperature would have been about 24degrees. water temp probably the same. clear water, no wind, no clouds.

also. it seamed the makeral were only looking at the bait when it was only 5m from the rocks.

thanks for all help.

[Jack_Lives_Here]

I'd vary the speed of retrieve - maybe trigger an attack response. If it was chasing bait naturally the bait would be going like the clappers to get away from them snappers.

[Lucky_Phill]

I have to agree with Jack, varing high speed retrievel.

The Mac's in the Bay just love a metal slug retrieved at about a zillion k's an hour.

[Heath]

Definatly the speed of the retrieve. The faster the better for mackerel. However, you may have had a bit more luck if you didn't wind the pillies in, but left them out there under a cork or similar. Also throwing a lure out & ripping it in as fast as you can, could have got them going.

[Volvo]

Jason i had the same prob recently, gang hooks, a pillie and a length of wire trace. decided ta take the wire off and every cast was a strike . mind ya ended up losing that many sets of gangs it wasnt funny as they were big fish and out of all the hookups and fish brought alongside (four in total) kept one let the other three go as thought the onbre had heaps of flesh ta keep missus and i happy for awhile .
Cheers n sumthin ta think of.

[Jason_L]

thanks for the reply's guys. that same day i did throw out some lures and wound them in preety quick.... as quick as i could for that particular lure. once again i had 1 looker, but that was about it.

i went out yesterday (tuesday) evening, had a strike right near the rocks but it spat the hooks straight away. it wasn't a huge fish by teh feel of it

i did catch 3 small trevelly though. biggest being 25cm's. they fight good for their size.

i think i might go with volvo's idea of not having a wire trace, but instead i'll get some 50lb nylon or something. see how that goes.

[aquarius]

Jason just one more thing to add, are you using a reel with a 6.1 gear ratio.....as the guys have said you can't reel that line in fast enough....those gritters love a fast moving bait!!!!!!Mate get yourself a shimano speedmaster overhead reel(6.1 ratio)excellent reel for mackerel fishing.
Cheers Brent

[Jack_Lives_Here]

Those macks can go from nothing to VERY fast in the blink of an eye. Watched a scooly nose up to a pilly at Fitzroy reef one year - 14m of crystal clear water - grab the pilly and just hit the thrusters - awesome.

High speed slugs are the go. Fast as you can and that's not fast enough most of the time.. It just doesn't give them a chance to distringuish bait fish or metal.

[Steve_Ooi]

Jason , mackeral can be frusterating at times, after trying a variety of speeds in the retrieve i would try the no wire like Volvo said, I have similar experiences with macks. No wire may mean more bite offs , but at least you get the strike.
The other day we had shark macks cruising around the boat and after about 30 fruitless cast with the fly rod i decided to take off the wire tippet then the first cast without the wire, bang, hook up straight away.

Poony

[Jason_L]

yeah. thanks. guys.. i got some clear 40lb line and it seamed to do the trick perfectly. i caught 4 macks in 3 days of which 3 were legal size. and the one i caught on lure was only about 7inches long.
i'm going to buy another Raider lure and give that a go.

my reel that i'm using i think is 5.8:1 so it's preety quick.

thanks guys for all the info you've given me

[Volvo]

jason had School of Spaniard drop by and pay us a visit last Friday arvo adjascent to one of the Reefs off Gladstone, Had a ball . Like previous said , cost me near a box of gangs at the end of the session but will post the Pics when developed as Pictures are better than words sometimes Lol.
The only prob apart from gettin cut off was at first settin the rod in the holder the buggers would hit n run and as soon as ya went ta grab the Rod they'de peel the Pillie off without so much as a thank you and bugger off Lol so then it was a matter of just casting, holding onto Rod and waiting, NO SINKER whatsoever ey and had it at one stage where under the count of five and ya had a hookup Lol.
Try keep the wire off unless they are extremely hungry.
Cheers
Volvo

[fishy_phil]

g'day
just thought id say the reel i got is a daiwa regal x 6000 and it has a 9.6:1 gear ratio this little reel has caught quite a few mackeral for my mate coz i dont fish for them but anyway, buy one and give it a go it has good line capacity if youre only using light line (6kg)

phil