With the Mackerel season being so important to just about all other summer fishing I thought this was worthy of a small post on its own. So just how has the Mackerel fishing UK 2019 season been?
From the very south coast of England to our local grounds around the Isle of Man to further north up the coast of Scotland I think there was an early panic about the Mackerel season this year. Whilst Mackerel were showing up at around the “usual” time both the number and size of fish was down. Being able to catch Mackerel reliably was a big problem for a lot of boats and as for from the shore it was mostly a case of making hay whilst the sun shone. If a shoal happened to turn up where you were then you take advantage! There has been much talk of the shoals being decimated in the Atlantic and I think a lot of anglers were worrying that 2019 could be the year the Mackerel finally didn’t show up en mass after a few years of it just getting ever worse.
But as I write this in early September something strange has happened. The south coast is now awash with large shoals of large Mackerel, smashing in to huge numbers of white bait. It was something I used to see in Peel every year as a kid but I’ve not seen in years, I’m hoping that will progress north and we’ll see it again this year too. As for our Mackerel fishing it is now absolutely rock solid, no issues at all with leaving port and catching Mackerel and there is plenty of size in them too.
I think what you can conclude from this is a couple of things. First of all the Mackerel season is getting later and lasting longer/till later each year. Personally I’m getting to the point where I wouldn’t expect to catch Mackerel in any sort of number until mid or late July. May or June is just a fluke. Secondly I think this is the best Mackerel year I can remember in a while…now they are finally here. Yeah it’s not how it used to be with large shoals of them here all summer but if it means a later Mackerel season with the same numbers I’ll take it. What I can’t understand is WHY they are turning up later? Our seas are warming up quicker each year, I can only assume that it’s a shift in what the Mackerel feed on. The biggest worry to me is the lack of Sandeels in our waters, if we think the Mackerel have been hammered then I hate to think what has happened to the Sandeels!
How has your 2019 Mackerel season been? I’d love to see some comments from being saying where they are from and how they’ve found it this year?