pacific mackerel. fishing, smoking, and eating.

saw the topic on sand dabs.

pat the veternarian out of marina, wife of randy, has the dabs down as I recall.

Btw, there's another little baitfish that can be pretty fun to catch with light gear and are quite edible, at least the way I just tried them.

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,4415.0.html

There is also a recent post by pistolero on the coastside, he got some mackerel near shore in monterey just this last weekend. so in theory you could get out there and stick some mackerel along with your dabs.

This morning, I had half a mackerel, on a bagel with cream cheese. I caught the mackerel last summer, bled it, gutted it, slabbed it into two sides, froze it in a zip-loc with some water. Last weekend I smoked it along with the last of the rockfish from the summer.

it was good in smoked form. it's an oily fish. I smoked it skin on, then peeled the skin off before eating. bones were no worse than trout and maybe easier to avoid.

anyways, I am hella-cauc-asian,  , in other words generally not down with eating bait, but mackerel are on a lot of guilt-free fish eating lists, so I decided to try one out.

my wife ate the other half of the mackerel as a taste testing control and confirmed that a half a smoked mackerel is great on a bagel with cream cheese.

since it passed the taste test, this summer I am going to take my boys (and maybe the wife), a cooler full of ice, a pile of ultra-lights and load up on some mackerel for the smoker. or we will try. we might do it from the skiffs, but we do have a few kayaks to try too.

mackerel commonly hit a sabiki, but they seem to hit anything you have out there, including one I caught on a duolock snap at the bottom of torpedo weight! mine often came trolling around near the kelp beds in capitola/santa cruz although the one I ate came from up davenport way.

So I know that this is pretty much a junk/bait fish to most of you guys, it's not part of AOTY etc, but if you don't mind slumming it a bit it's a good option for kids and some relaxed and fast-action fishing, and with some care to bleed the fish and get them on ice, and a simple electric smoker, it's a fish that is on the eat-as-much-as-you-want-with-no-guilt list.

good luck,
John

During the El Nino years in the '70s, I used to catch mackerel in the dozens, not good since I was always trying for salmon. I've tried eating mackerel, but it seems the only time I can stand the taste is at a sushi bar...never could figure out how to tame the strong flavor. I would either try them for bait or just toss them back. When some Portuguese and Asian neighbors found out about my unappreciated bounty, they all went ballistic and were begging for any future mackerel catch. Which just goes to show that one person's dislike is another's manna from heaven.

Also, mackerel make for deadly bait for yellowtail in the kelp.

I only ate the one, but I wanted to give it the best chance so did bleed it, ice it quickly, freeze it for 6 months, then smoke it which probably tamed it pretty good. from previous posts it seems you have to be prepared to keep them by bleeding them and icing them quickly so they don't get mushy. a lot of work for a small fish so not really what most people are prepared to do. if you catch them as by-catch and don't process them well, then they may not taste so good.

But no limit (?), no season, good for you, willing strikers, hard fighters, no spines, etc, seems like a gift not to be ignored. they are pretty darn slimey tho.

This summer, I might rent one of those skiffs and make like we are a tiny alan-tani tuna expedition, but with kids as passengers instead of kayakers and for mackerel instead of albacore,  .  use single barbless hooks for safety and bring them in one at a time to make the fun last.

That would be fun, esp fror the kids.  I'll ask around see where they are right now.  I think Sacyak sacked some up at the red buoy in Monterey last week.

Allen

I've eaten them the Sabu Tatsuta way the Zeelander describes in Recipes, and I thought it was pretty tasty, but I can see that some people would think it was too "fishy", and they probably ought to stick to halibut and swordfish.  Mac's are a riot to catch on a trout rod - they remind me of American Shad the way they fight.

  Years back, I used to rock fish with dad on his boat off Davenport, 300' and using just an ordinary rockfish jig, (yellow/red yarn) 4 or 5 hooks? can't recall now,  multiple hook anyhow, we'd be unlucky enough to drop through a school of mackerel and each of us would end up winding in  full lines of these fish. 
  They were "garbage fish" As dad called them so we'd toss them back and move the boat trying to avoid the school.  The gulls seemed to enjoy us tossing them back though!  I recall one gull took a mackerel that was just too big!  It couldn't get the entire fish down its gullet, and  it looked like half the fish was sticking out its beak!  The gull also floated with a noticeable forward leaning tilt and couldn't take off!

My and my friends used to catch em all the time as by catch, along with jacksmelt, from those rickety dory's they rent on the Santa Cruz wharf, before I got my kayak.

The smelt were bait, but the mackerel went in the cooler.  I just wrapped em in foil, with a little lime or lemon juice, 10 minutes in the oven.

I read somewhere that you should eat or freeze em the same day.  I guess they go bad quickly because of the oil?

They are neat, tasty fish.

Bonito meat becomes mushy very quickly also.

I liked them because they're fishy!!!
Back home, we usually pan fry them & put some garnish (like green onion or dikon radish) w/ soy source, and of course eat w/ some white rice! They're so good!
I've never had fresh ones until I came here (we don't get them around Okinawa), and the fresh ones are much better!
 

My two kids can claim to have caught their first ever fish on their own from kayak last spring, a few trout from SCR.

But for one reason or another I have not got them on the salt yet,  .  they are more than ready I think.

mackerel seem like the perfect target for them.

This spring/summer, I got a house rented right by the harbour in santa cruz for a couple months. Besides taking the yak out, I am going to rent one of those rickety dories and take the boys out mini-tuna (mackerel) fishing with trout poles.

we'll do the whole bleed, gut, ice thing like you do with albies, but scaled down to 1/20th weight,  . then I'll slab 'em and smoke 'em like the test subject.

If anybody wants to compete against us, the rules are one single barbless hook per line, most mackerel bled, gutted and iced in the cooler wins,  .  no sabikis with barbs! that's the fastest way, but not so safe for kids.

I just hope I can find a way to avoid the smelt and find the mackerel. maybe a bigger hook will keep most of the smelt off and allow the mackerel to still get stuck on there? I had one mackerel last summer on the duo-lock snap hanging off the weight at the bottom of my sabiki,  . I guess he really wanted to join his buds stuck on the sabiki hooks.

hmm, I wonder if you could chum the mackerel to the boat like they do other game fish? have a bait stop, 

John

Are you going to rig your kayak sonar on the dory?

The biggest halibut I've ever seen came in one one of those boats...  it must have been 40lbs. 

I do have one sonar unit that is easy to move and was thinking of bringing it if I can find a way to rig the transducer easily. I think you'd have to hang it over the side or something.

I'm sure over the years those little boats have racked up some serious catches.

jmairey:

I have a extra portable you are welcome to use.

If you go out of Capitola, I think Ed still has a portble I gave him a cople years ago.

Allen

Scallen, thanks! I will look you up when I get down there! 

try them (fillets soaked with soy or teriyaki) on the bbq grill, semi-smoked.
place them away from the heat (medium) and cover the bbq grill.
they come out pretty nice. not too strong.

if you can handle the taste of mackeral, you can probably handle the taste of any fish...