| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Jonnyboy |
Mackerel watchAnybody heard of them coming inshore yet? Will probably be another month up here but maybe they should be coming in on the south coast areas? |
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| sean |
Should be soon. Need to check when the spring tides are, there's a beach near here where they regularly get trapped in the rockpools and you can scoop them out with a bucket. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Sounds great, some pics of that would be really interesting to see. | ||||
| sean |
I'll check the tides for the next couple of weeks and see if they're propitious. You've decided that they freeze OK haven't you? Just gut them and freeze whole? | ||||
| Treacodactyl |
Thanks for the reminder. I've just checked the web site that has catch reports of the beaches we've used and there's nothing there at the moment. They arrived in early April last year though so I might plan a trip for later this month. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
I take the heads off as well, simply because they take up less room. But I do individually wrap them. HFW recommends snipping the gills of just caught mackerel to bleed them out, I'll have to try that as well. |
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| Jonnyboy |
You going for the garfish again? Going to try deep fried garfish bones? 
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| dpack |
bleed and fast freeze within a couple of hours
or make lots of mackerel pate and freeze that or brine 12 hours and smoke then freeze best last imho m's are best so fresh they still twitch as sushami ,horseradish or wasabi and ligt soy or bbqed asap they are poor bait after a few hours , im as fussy as conger 
tail fisks are ace bait |
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| Treacodactyl |
I was going for mackerel last time.  Now I've tasted garfish I'm more than happy to catch a few more. Probably try a float while spinning with another rod.
What about deep frying? The bones go bright green even when the fish is lightly fried. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Same technique I think.
In the river cottage fish book there is a recipe for fried garfish bones, toss the leftover bones in seasoned flour, after rubbing with garlic first, fry briefly in hot oil and then crunch away. |
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| deanowales |
Mackerel are now showing all along the South Wales coast, Pembrokeshire and Cardigan Bay best at moment, Swansea and the Gower will be more prolific within the next 2 weeks.. Bass also showing on most Gower rock marks and the surf beaches at Cefn Sidan and Llangenith and also furhter west at Pendine. | ||||
| Blacksmith |
Off to Chesel beach on the 24th May for my first beach fishing session with a couple of workmates.
Bought a "combo" 13' rod and reel from veals. £30.00
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| gil |
a local game dealer told me yesterday that the Welsh sea bass had started showing |
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| Blacksmith |
Off to Weymouth tomorrow, taking my aunt to visit friends then off to Chesil for the rest of the day. | ||||
| Blacksmith |
Forgot to say, if anyone in the locality wants to say "hello" and have a drink/cuppa please text or call me.
(mobile number on my website) Dave. |
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| Treacodactyl |
Good luck, I hope there's plenty and a few make it round to the Sussex coast and we hope to try our hand again next week. There's been reports of gars and mackerel turning up in decent numbers so there should be a few about. | ||||
| Bebo |
Where abouts do you usually fish off the Sussex coast? I've done lots of coarse fishing (and a bit of fly - my casting is rubbish) in the past and was thinking of having a go at trying to bash out some mackerel to put in my smoker. |
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| Treacodactyl |
We've only been once so there's no usually. We have found this site very useful, it has a run down of some of the best locations and frequent catch reports.
http://www.sussexseafishing.co.uk/50.html |
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| Bebo |
Thanks for the link, I'll have a good read later. Looks like it cover west sussex more than east, so I may just have to go by trial and error. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Took the boat out last night and got seven beauties, all in a mad 5 minutes. Seeing as I was out for an hour and a half I think I need to find a way to be able to catch more on my own, maybe more feathers in a string? I have 3 at the moment so would 6 be better? | ||||
| vegplot |
We went to the North Wales boat show at the weekend. It wasn't exactly Earls Court and a little sparse on exhibitors which included a market stall selling towels, appropriate but somewhat out of place.
We spied these wonderful little craft http://www.marinerevolution.co.uk/av3500.htm and are seriously considering getting one. We have a old 4m dory which we'll probably sell along to a 30HP outboard which will help finance the new boat. We only need something to potter around the inlets of Anglesey and EV is keen on mackerel fishing and it would make a great dive boat. What's great about these boats is they're very tough, light weight (if you call 100kg light) and dead easy to launch. If we fit an outboard of less than 10HP it's classified as a tender which means no launch fees. All we need is the weather! |
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| Jonnyboy |
Looks similar to the pioner which is a good boat.
You could also try terhi boats, the sea fun is £1899 and will plane with a 10hp. |
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| vegplot |
We saw those as well. Our local boat yard is promoting them via Yamaha with a bundled deal on boat and outboard. Choices, choices. |
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| Jonnyboy |
what was the deal? | ||||
| vegplot |
I don't know yet as I haven't had a chance to look at the bumph. I may go there at lunch time and see what it is. I'm trying to do this on a budget (for a new boat) and I know I'll get sucked into spending more than I want to so I'm going to take along EV with her deterent mallet. Boats and money. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Just been looking at the smartwave 3500, very tempting.
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| vegplot |
What I liked about the Smartwave was the toughness and the overall impress of strength. The front cleat is a big chuck of stainless embedded firmly in the prow and look like it would take an elephant on speed to rip it out. Likewise the transom is a very chunky piece of metal looking like it could cope with 250HP rather than its rated 25HP. The chap promoting the tehri said they were made of the same material as car bumpers but I've seen an awful lot of them shattered which didn't inspire. The Smartwave is made of polyethylene which is a thermo plastic and therefore repairable, I'm not sure what the theri's are made of. In their defence they are a well respected brand with good dealership support. |
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| KILLITnGRILLIT |
Mackerel at Arbroath ATM in Big shoals ! | ||||
| mihto |
Language problem again...what do you mean by "feathers"? When fishing from a boat we use a strong gut with red/green/yellow plastic worms which cover a hook, at intervals of ca 1 m. We use about 8-10 altogether. At the end there is a sinker. A way to catch many mackerel in one go: Two rather long - 5 m? bamboo sticks. On each stick you fasten thin lines of gut, approximately 2-3 m long and at an interval of 30-50 cm. At the end of each line you have a standard hook. Fasten poles on each side of the boat and let the hooks trail in the water. Drive boat slowly. You need no bait; once you hit a shoal of mackerel they will bite on the bare hook and you take 10 fish in one go. Question: Why do you need so many mackerel? Are you planning a canning factory?
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| Stewy |
FEATHERS | ||||
| mihto |
This is interesting! Will have a look in our local tackle shop, but I have never seen anything like these. Are they fastened along a line and moved up and down in the water? |
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| Jonnyboy |
you dangle 'em in the water and lift your rod up and down, or cast off the rocks and retrieve in a random fashion. Great for mackerel. I want to catch lots to eat, and to freeze for use in the winter months. |
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| mihto |
The most I ever had with those two bambus rods were 150 mackerel within 2 hours. Then it suddenly stopped. Not a single fish bit, and we gave up after a while.
Freezing fat fish like mackerel for more than 5-6 months has its own problems. What is your trick? |
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| Jonnyboy |
gut, de head and individually wrap before freezing. Probably won't start freezing them until september though.
I do want to experiment with fillets in oil too. |
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| dpack |
salted and pressed they have their own oil like pilchards do
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| Bebo |
I've also heard rumoured that they keep in the freezer better if hot smoked first, but haven't tried it myself yet. | ||||
| Treacodactyl |
When I last went people were pulling out 4 mackerel on a 6 hook rig from a small pier. I have also noticed you can get 12 feathers on a line which might be usable from a boat, if not the shore. I've just taken delivery of a selection of feathers and lures so we'll be trying again, just as soon as the holiday season's over. |
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| Treacodactyl |
If you do I'd be very interested to hear how you get on with one. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Cheers, just found some 12 feather rigs but they are just the colouyred feathers, I find the ones with a bit of glitter are more effective as the water near me can be sometimes murky. I might buy some 4 feather rigs and make a larger one up myself. |
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| vegplot |
I'll keep you informed. We have a 4m Dory with a 30HP outboard plus a Bic Scapa kyak to sell first to offset the cost. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Only thing I would suggest is that if you go for tiller steered then don't get carried away with the horsepower on the back.
EDIT: your dory should be worth at least the cost of the boat plus engine? |
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| vegplot |
I plan to use a 8 or 9.9 HP 4 stroke engine. I don't need outright performance, We'll just be doing a little tootling around, a bit of fishing and maybe even some diving. The dory and engine are both well used but very serviceable. I hope to meet the bulk of the cost through selling them. It's almost exactly like the one pictured here. http://www.donedeal.ie/donedeal/classifieds/viewFullPhoto.jsp?cid=862070 |
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| Jonnyboy |
Just having a thought, it's going to be difficult to mount a secondary engine on something like that, so your back up will be oars. I'm using oars at the moment but will probably be getting a 2.6 honda or parsun next week as a standby.
fund permitting. |
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| vegplot |
An optional extra for the Smartwave is an auxilliary engine bracket which presumably mounts on one of the rear steps. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Ahh yes, that's good. | ||||
| bodger |
The village mackerel race took place ( not plaice ) last Sunday afternoon with poor results. Only 150 fish were caught between a large number of boats. I don't know if you remember but the previous year the total exceded 1500. | ||||
| KILLITnGRILLIT |
This is what you want Jonny, trust me they are deadly ! http://www.anglingcentre.net/acatalog/s_MackSpinners.html Fourth one down, pack of 5. |
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| KILLITnGRILLIT |
It`s true, especially if you salt first 
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| mihto |
From my rather limited experience of smoking macerel one should put them in sea salt overnight, rinse the salt off the next day, cover them in nice spice and smoke them. How long they then will keep in the freezer depends on your appetite
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| Bebo |
I'll give it a go if I ever manage to sort out the fishing gear and catch some! | ||||
| Stewy |
Going to Jersey on Saturday for a week and was going to take the feathering gear but having never been before is it any good for feathering and if so any hot spots? | ||||
| SmattyB |
Stewy, I wish I were going!
St Catherine's breakwater is an excellent spot. If you can get there 2 hrs before high tide, you should be good for Mackerel, gar and if you're lucky a bass. Feathering is fine, but it's much more fun with a light spinning outfit. Also most of the rocky headlands into deep water should produce at this time of the year. Hope you have fun. M |
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| Stewy |
Cheers SmattyB, I'll report back if we have any joy!! | ||||
| Stewy |
Just dug out my light carp rod for a bit of spinning which has pleased the girlfriend no end!
I thought I had a few Dexter wedges but I can't find them so a trip to the tackle will be in order once we get there. |
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| vegplot |
Sounds decidedly personal. |
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| Jonnyboy |
I was at my local boat shop on friday (got a used honda 2.3hp as a back up engine for a bargain £275) and they had some kruger boats on display, a new one on me but they looked very well finished and my local dealer had package prices on the open boat (lamda I think) including trailer for £2k. Worth a look if you can find a local dealer. |
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| Stewy |
Well, we didn't do as much fishing as I would of liked and I caught bugger all but me girlfriend had a bit of "luck" so we didn't starve, I'll never hear the end of this!!! 
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| vegplot |
Don't, don't. Too much temptation. Yes, they look good. I've just sold my BiC Scapa kayak on eBay to help pay to the new boat. Just need another 9 of them 
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| vegplot |
Nice fish! Edit: Er, that came out wrong. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Just pulled out 36 in two hours, nice fat ones too. Hopefully this will carry on through september, August was a bit lean. | ||||
| Treacodactyl |
What did you catch them on, plain feathers or something else? As the holiday season is coming to an end we'll bed popping down to the coast again in the next few weeks so I hope they keep around a bit longer. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Used the silvery feathers, find they attract more fish, especially if heavy rain has caused the sea to be a bit silty.
I made up a 12 hook rig and a 6 hook, glad I didn't actually try the 12 hook as 5 large mackerel on a 6 hook is a heavy amount to reel in! these ones, http://www.mustad.no/catalog/product.php?id=241 |
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| Penny |
I remember fishing at Glenbrittle on Skye when I were a lass. We just through the hooks in and they came up full 
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