Too early for mackerel?

<font color='#810541'>Hi Julian, and welcome aboard.

I think you should defo be in with a chance of mackerel in your area at this time of year.  I base this thought on the fact that I regularly catch mackerel here in the Isle of Man from Mid-march - so being much further south your timetable should be ahead of mine.

I have found though that the early run of mackerel are very localised to only a couple of marks (as opposed to summer when they are virtually everywhere), so you might have to hunt to track them down.  They will not be about in the numbers you would find during summer, but this should be made up by the increased size of fish that appear at this time of year (2lb plus are a realistic target in my area). You might have to change tactics as well - I find that a flyer works brilliantly at this time of year compared to the usual mackerel catching methods.


One point I must pass on whenever mackerel are mentioned : apparently, if you handle them and return them then they die within a couple of days.  So if you do not intend to keep your mackerel then handle as little as possible with a very wet cloth to give the fish the best possible chance of survival.</font>

<font color='#000000'>Hi Julian
We don&#39;t get our first run of Mackeral &#39;til the end of April,but at the other end of the scale I have caught em off Chesil in December&#33;
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<font color='#000080'>Hi Julianf

Mackerel are available all year round, but only if you have access to a boat. Mackerel are pelagic and so spend much of there time in the open seas away from the shore, migrating inwards as the seas get warmer which is roughly around now...

I&#39;m looking forward to seeing them again </font>