A week ago, before work, I got up early, put a couple of rods in the boat and headed out to one of the closer reefs off the Gold Coast Seaway. I had less than an hour of fishing time and had to be at work before 7.30am. I threw a pair of hard bodied minnows out the back (a Halco Laser Pro and a Nomad) and trolled a few hundred metres before the Halco was eaten and the reel screamed off. I wasn’t a huge fish but I soon had a nice 8 kilo Spanish mackerel aboard. 10 minutes later I caught another fish that was slightly smaller. On the sounder I could see the vertically stacked schools typical of Spanish mackerel, one of the most popular species of fish to chase in southern Queensland. I signed off at the Gold Coast Seaway at 6.30am and was early for work.
I’ve chased Spanish mackerel for over thirty years, and while each season is different, I’d say we catch just as many mackerel now as we did three decades ago, and in no way am I a gun mackerel fisherman. Mackerel are a wonderful fish to catch, they have a screaming first run, respond
