We finally found our mackerel, on a windy and overcast, properly autumnal day at Old Head. A mere dozen fell to my rod before the sky closed over and rain drove us to the safety of the car. Even those few were hard caught. A huge shoal of herring sprat had the predatory mackerel preoccupied, so that for a time I despaired of catching anything at all. The discovery of a string of small, white-feathered hooks changed things for me. Other anglers were less fortunate; they sent their traditional multi-coloured rigs into the middle of the shoals over and again without so much as a pull.
‘Mackerel Bashing’ is the derisory term given to hauling these tasty and normally undiscriminating members of the tuna family from the sea three and four at a time, though there was no bashing about it on this day, only frustration at seeing them so close to the shore yet almost impossible to catch….
Mayo News 17/09/2013 Read the article ‘Sprat to shark for the taking’
