Frozen bait

What is the best to have at home it be just general fishing from beach on east coast all catch and release so dont mind what i catch normally use rag worm but cant always get to tackle shop

Also the fresh Mackerel fillets from Aldi and Lidl are these usable bait?

I've caught loads of species on Lidl and Aldi Mack's including a Tope in Tralee 2 weeks ago. They're not fresh though, they're frozen and defrosted before you buy them.

Aldi/Lidl fillets are okISH, they are not the best quality. As for good frozen bait, freshly frozen crab is good, as is mackerel, but one they're refrozen the quality drops dramatically. Sandeel are handy too, same rules apply.

Used to be able to get good selection of frozen baits in EEC Hardware Balbriggan but they stopped doing fishing stuff. Besides the supermarkets anywhere North Dublin area doing frozen baits

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I've caught loads of species on Lidl and Aldi Mack's including a Tope in Tralee 2 weeks ago. They're not fresh though, they're frozen and defrosted before you buy them.

What size was the tope?

Was going fishing recently and the tackle shop was closed- so into a supermarket and they and fresh mackerel- the quality was worse than I would have gotten off of a frozen mackerel! Fresh is usually better- but just check the quality first!

if they have whole mack on display - look at the eyes are they black or cloudy
ask to see the gills are the pink/red or brown/dark - does the flesh stay depressed after handling and not bounce out again?
if so avoid - better paying extra in tackle shop for top quality frozen rather than that sort of "fresh" the supermarkets sometimes put out for human consumption!

https://www.fsai.ie/news_centre/food_al ... kerel.html

Mackerel fillets labelled as Irish but the recall notice states country of origin unknown.