Mack Attack

Was down in Carlingford with the Mrs fot the weekend and managed to sneak in a rod. Escaped for a while on Sat and decided to hit the rocks at Clogherhead to see if there was anything around. Stuck a bait rod out with crab and my finest Sidewinder lures on another looking for some silver. Not a bite for 2 hours. A couple of lads down from me were hitting the very odd mack and small pollack but it was slow and I figured I should get them on my spinner if a big shoal came in anyway. I gave one of the chaps some crab claws and he pulled up a couple of corkwing and a common blenny, both species that I am missing ATM!



At that point, a group of local young lads rocked up close to me with feathers and had a full house of mack I think 1st cast. I still held out on my spinner but was getting nothing, being a bit short on range at 1 oz to the young lads pulling in the mack on the 3 oz leads. 



After 5-10 mins I decided to join them. Luckily I always carry a set of feathers and a couple of 2 oz leads. So I started whaling it out a good distance and quickly hitting full houses, good fishing. What happened after I have never seen the likes of. Huge shoals of 1st sprat and the sandeel moved in right under our feet. I have seen mack rise before to hit a bait fish but not on this scale. For say a minute or so at a time, whole shoals would just erupt from the water, annihilating the bait fish. This would stop for a few minutes then happen again on and off. Really quite spectacular, like a scene from Piranha. When this was happening I could just flick the feathers out 5 yards or sometimes even just drop straight down the side and get strings of mack, a lot of coalies although only to 1 lb and the odd small pollack. Mack were a great size too, I saw one joey the whole time. 



Excellent to get the food and bait stocked up for the year. Every scrap of mack in my photos will be used!



On my way back to base I stopped off to have a look at Port beach. Chatting to a lucky guy who had had a 7 lb bass while I was mack bashing. Showed me dated photos and all. I don't enjoy fishing that beach as the tidal range on it is huge and I find myself constantly having to move the tripod but I think we had smallish tides at weekend so maybe not so bad.



Anyway, the 1st mack result of the season is always great fun, always forget how hard they scrap and nice to get a few quid back on some delicious scran with all of the money I put into the hobby.



Got excited and tried Belfast Lough last night up to HW. Not a bite. Any boats out feathering didn't seem to be sticking around either. Oh well, hopefully soon.



Cheers,



G

A nice positive report on the mackerel front at last. Nice fishing

Thanks for the report G, nice to finally hear of them showing up in numbers.