The mackerel is one of the most popular, easily available and versatile baits a sea angler can use. There are not many species in the sea that will turn their noses up at a mackerel bait in some form. You can catch your own bait during/before you session when the mackerel are inshore in numbers, mostly during the summer months. This means you have access to extremely fresh bait. You can also freeze them to give you a good supply of bait for the winter months when the mackerel become scarcer.  If you do this make sure the fish lies flat to make it easier to cut up when you come to use it. Wrap each fish, whole or in fillets, individually in cling film to protect the flesh against freezer burn which will ruin the bait. Despite being readily available please only take as many as you need for bait or for the table. If you don’t have time to catch your own or the fish are hard to come by, mackerel are readily available from the supermarket/fishmonger or, better still, the freezer section of your local tackle shop (these tend to be of better quality as they are blast frozen from fresh).

Apart from its wide availability the mackerel is also popular because the flesh contains a lot of strong smelling oil that fish will detect and seek out. The skin has a silver sheen to it that flashes in the water in bright conditions making the bait a visual attractor as well. The skin is also quite tough making the bait difficult for fish to steal from the hook without getting hooked themselves.

The mackerel can be used in a variety of different ways. Choose the best bait for the species you wish to target.

Small whole or Joey mackerel can be used alive or dead as a bait for big predators such as sharks, bass, huss, conger eels and tope. Simply hook the fish through the top jaw.

Whole or half fillets are great for similar species as well as rays.

The head and guts is a highly scented, large bait which will attract big bass and conger eels amongst other big fish.

The fillets themselves can be cut into strips by either cutting down from the backbone to the belly or, for longer strips, lengthways along the flank of the fillet. These can be used on their own for a massive range of species such as bream, dogfish, flatfish, pout and whiting to name a few. You can also add the strips to give your bait extra scent and visual attractant creating a ‘cocktail’. This can sometimes bring a wider variety of species to your hook.  

The strips are also a popular bait to use under a float during the summer to catch more mackerel, garfish, pollack and scad. Long strips from the belly can also be slowly spun when fishing from rocks or piers for the same species.