fine fat mackeral

Hi all,
I was heading out there yesterday and I stopped in a supermarket to get some mackerel for bait.
When I got to the fish counter the man behind it handed me two "fine fat mackerel" which he said had been caught off the Mayo coast.
All well and good I headed to my mark and proceeded to fish. As I cut up the first mackerel I found it to be full of eggs and the same was true of the second, I'm sure everyone realises that these were females getting ready to spawn.

My question is shouldn't it be wrong to commercially target these fish which have yet to spawn?
Also worrying is that this practice is happening right in our backyard.
I'm no expert but I can't imagine that pulling female fish full of spawn out of the sea in their thousands isn't damaging to the overall population.

I had the exact same on last Thursday!..big fat mackeral..but nearly more roe than meat!!..

I am not an expert but I suppose the way commercial mackerel fishing is being done. There is no way they can sort those that are fat and ready to spawn from among those that are not. With the volume of catch this fisherman have, the macks would be dead before they are seen by the fisherman.

There should be a closed season to commercial Trawlers on fishing for macks, It would be simple enough to do, find out the time of year and just close it down for a couple of weeks to give them a chance, the same as we do for the Bass! Infact Id be game to stop fishing for mack during the close season for them

Iv Been saying this for a while these big factory fishing ships target full shoals of fish and literally pipe the fish to the freezing/gutting hold on the boat. There is no sorting or selection its also a disaster for any mackerel left behind/missed as they have little chance of survival without the shoal . They be come sitting ducks for predators.

Hi Paddy,

I see that your post was made in June. The commercial mackeral season was over for a couple of months at that stage so no Irish trawler landed those fish, unless they wernt as fresh as you thought.

Theres no doubt that all the seafish are way behind on their natural spawning this year due to the long winter.

Caz