Winter Spanish Mackerel
Around Southeast Queensland there has been an excellent run of larger Spanish mackerel coming through this winter on the shallow offshore reefs, so I thought I would talk about some of the tackle suited to chasing these toothy speedsters on topwaters. The airborne strike from a big Spanish is not something you will forget easily, with the fish sometimes shooting up 5-6metres in the air!
PE 5-8 tackle is ideal, and lures can vary from 150mm through to over 220mm. Generally, I prefer lures of 180mm and up as they are less likely to be snipped off by the mackerel. While timber lures work very well on Spanish, their teeth do tend to make a real mess of them. Many anglers prefer heavy duty injection molded plastic or poured resin lures for their durability in this situation. Depending on the day, Spanish mackerel can show preferences for a particular lure shape or color, so it is smart to keep trying different lures until you crack the pattern for that session. If you have several people on the boat casting, it is best if everyone tries a different option until you get some indication of what they are liking at the time. Switching between poppers, floating and sinking stick baits is a standard approach. Also, if you can see mackerel on the sounder sitting deep in the water column and not rising up for the surface lures, you may need to try a fast-sinking stick bait or a metal jig to get down to the fishes level.
Lure colors for mackerel vary but usually natural patterns with good reflective flash are a great starting point. Some days they will love a bright splash of Fluro color and others, especially cloudy days, they will go for darker blacks and purples.
When working lures for Spanish, I try not to leave them sitting still in the water for too long, as the fish frequently miss-hit the lure or swallow it deeply. Either way it is a high risk of being bitten off. Steady sweeps, twitches and winds that are predictable for the mackerel to chase, give you a better chance of the fish hitting the tail end for a clean hook up. Given the constant issue of bite offs, you would think wire leaders would be standard but the mackerel seem to avoid lures with wire leaders like the plague at least in the well fished waters of SE Queensland.
Lastly, many anglers will fish heavy drag setting as default on their topwater gear. It is not necessary with mackerel as they are very clean fighters that burn themselves out quickly with sizzling surface runs. Running heavy GT drag can present more of a problem when a Mackie grabs the lure right by the boat and keeps swimming at top speed straight under the hull resulting in damaged rod tips, broken lines and bruised anglers as they are dragged along the gunnels.
Below we have included some lures perfect for targeting Spanish Mackerel.
Good luck out there!