mackerel vs sandeel?

was out at the weekend, first couple of casts, 2 hook flappers, was using mackerel + muscle/squid.

high tide @ 11:30am, calm not too cold, light wind, overcast, clean ground

no luck

re-baited with mackerel/ muscle, and other hook whole sandeel.

within minutes was getting bites, thought i was in so reeled in.

mack untouched, sandeel almost bitten off just behind the hook. hooked it in the middle.

as i had only 2 sandeels with me, i cut the one i had just retrieved in half and tryed half of it on each hook.

result within 5 min small( 17 cm ) whiting!

used up both eels, over next hour ( 9:30 - 10:30 ) , resulting in a few more whiting.


had no choice but the go back to mack + squid/muscle/lug

result, no more fish/ bites.

for the next 4 hours the mack was coming back in pristine condition.

i tryed small stripes/large with and without squid..ect

i have seen many reports where whiting..ect have taken mack just fine.

why did the show such a preference for sandeel?

by the way the were tearing up the sandeel i would have assumed mack would have work well.

is this common, that the show preference like that?

is there anything else i could have done?

did get one SMALL( 7cm ) whiting on mack, but that was on a spinning rod, on a lure that has the body of a spinner, and three very small hooks trailing it that i had baited with Very Small bits of mack, was working it along the bottom in stepped retrieves, and think it was taken close to the pier as i was bringing it up, was trying for small anything on the bottom:)

when the small whiting are there they will usually take any good fish bait/cocktail. perhaps the macks were past their best. perhaps the whiting were choosy. you could have used smaller baits for the whiting ie a small sliver of flesh about the size of your little finger nail. this will take away the possibility of a good bass/codling however. its always a good idea to see if the fish have a preference for one bait or another.

Fishing is not an exact science, perhaps the hour that you were using the sandeel for there were more whiting around.

I think with sandeel you tend to hook more whiting, I have noticed that when using sandeels that whiting take the hook much deeper where as with mackerel they tend to tear at it a bit.

Keep you snoods fairly short for the whiting 12" max and as for hook size go for about a size 2, don't leave anything hanging off the hook for the whiting to tear at either and leave plenty of hook point showing.

last trip out the mac i had was refrozen and it still out fished razor lug and squid ,on other ocasions on the same mark squid has out fished in the same way ? all whiting /rockling so just try a bit of all your available baits till you find out whats working best on the day 8)

thanks,

thinking about it, i've gotten into the habit of letting a lot of my bait sit together. mack/squid/muscle in the same tray.

got into the habit, and now let most of it apart from lug/rag sit together from start of session onwards.

was doing this last wkend, though it would increase the life of the bait and give a good all round sent.

is there good reason to keep it separate?

haven't been fishing long so all advice is welcome!

alby keeps all his together in a tray when hes fishing comps ,and he always does ok :roll:

Over the last month or two I have been getting very little on mackerel, I only had one fish on it last night. Lug was the best followed by razor and sandeel. Most of the time I would bet on sandeel for a better variety of fish. Everything seems to like them.

a month agoo was fishing a match,lad next to me pulled in two trebles of whiting on mackerel, i was using mack too but they would't touch it, wrapped up three half sandeel and straight away got a treble :shock:

last week could get a tap on sandeel, but mackerel was getting hammered by the little whiting, i think a lot of it has to do with the quality of the bait

i think a lot of it has to do with the quality of the bait

:lol: my mackeral usually look like gold bars :lol: :lol: :lol:

when you cut the head of sandeel i suppose it gives off a better scent than mackeral.

ya, was out yesterday, didn't have any sandeel, was using mack, getting whiting most of the day, still not very big.

looking for ways to increase species? so far got the odd rockling, and plenty of small whiting.
generally using 2/3 hook flappers( size 2 hook ) and mack/squid/muscle.

any advice on rig/bait?

one of the best ways of picking up the smaller species is by fishing very small baits along a pier wall at night, different species of rockling can be caught as well as the mini wrasse species(during the day),pollock,coalies,scorpian fish,blennies etc

try hitting a bit of rough ground some calm, float fish a small hardback over kelp to pick up wrasse and the odd bass,

try fishing a surf beach with a three hook flapper using lug,rag,fish or maddie baits to pick bass,turbot,flounder etc

you could hit places like the Shannon estuary using sandeel,peeler or mackerel for ray,huss,dogs.

im sure some of the local lads can help as regard to local spots, and remember its the time of year for tough fishing with not many species available, a month or so should see that right.