mackeral??????

lads was out yesterday in howth . we caught about 40 macks some of them were huge 2lb+ when i was cleaning all these out there stomaches were empty no fry .the pollock we got all had crab but again no fry or sprat. i wonder are the fry all moving off. most of the time when we get macks there spitting sprat out.but not yesterday

have noticed there is very little activiety along the shoreline, hardly
any birds diving and i think thats why the fishing is so bad this year
this seems to be the case on the wicklow/wexford beaches
cant remember having such a bad year

Had about 30 from Greystones, only one or two were the size you'd get a decent fillet off.
The rest were very small for this time of year.

Brought one decent Codling home, belly full of starfish

how do you find whats in the stomach i was filleting a few and sll i could find was a few small organs where exactly is the stomach in a mackeral?

The stomach's a bit like a small ballon at the front end of the intestine underneath the liver which is kind of spongy and the pyloric caecae which are a kind of feathery bunch to do with digesition. The heart's also distinctive as being redder and smaller than the other organs and located just behind the head.

I've looked inside mackerel stomach's a while ago off Brittany and found small sandeels. Some also had white nematode worms which are parasitc. I think these worms can be harmful to humans but I'm pretty sure they don't live in the flesh and are killed by thorough cooking anyway.

i fish carlingford this last couple off years fry numbers definitely down on previous years .also appeared a bit later than normal