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Species Guide - Spanish Mackerel
Having the right gear for your Spanish Mackerel Spearfishing journey is important to securing your catch. Below is a detailed list of the important gear you'll need when Spearfishing for Spanish Mackerel.
- Flashers: The use of flashers, either towed or thrown, can help to catch the fish's attention or to hold their focus. Spanish Mackerels... Read More
Species Guide - Spanish Mackerel
Having the right gear for your Spanish Mackerel Spearfishing journey is important to securing your catch. Below is a detailed list of the important gear you'll need when Spearfishing for Spanish Mackerel.
- Flashers: The use of flashers, either towed or thrown, can help to catch the fish's attention or to hold their focus. Spanish Mackerels are more inclined to hone in on thinner, elongated, reflective objects, as their normal prey are baitfish like anchovies, pilchards or squid. Additions of artificial eyes placed on the flasher or lure relative to its size can also help to draw the Spanish Mackerel in closer. Spanish, being sight hunters, often use the eye of the prey to close in on their target before striking, so having one there certainly helps to extend the effectiveness of the illusion.
- Spearguns: Longer-range spear guns are useful. Due to the fact that Spanish Mackerels are pelagic and mostly hover out off the edges or midwater above the reef, it means you can't utilise the reef for cover to hide yourself from your prey, so getting within range can be tricky at times. Having a standard spear gun of 1.2m or longer with twin 16mm rubbers or thicker rubbers or a roller gun 1.1m or longer can help to give you the range required to take a longer shot at a wary fish.
- Shaft choice: Because Spanish Mackerels are a soft-fleshed fish with soft skin and very tiny scales, particular spear shafts can increase the chances of landing the fish after the shot is made. Standard Hawaiian floppered shafts (ones with a single fixed flopper) can work well for Spanish, but sharpness and shot placement are key. The blunter they are, the more they damage the flesh on the way through, increasing the chance of tearing. Shafts with slip tips can help to land the fish by increasing the surface area on the fish, decreasing the amount it can tear away. In saying this, if you intend to use a slip tip for Spanish Mackerel, Dyneema is a preferable attachment method over stainless cable as stainless cable can act more like a garrot cutting through the fish as it swims away. Due to the larger size of slip tips, they are not particularly effective on Spanish Mackerels under 15kg as they place too large a hole through the fish, and there is not enough meat to sink into. Other options similar to slip tips that can work well are drop barb shafts due to the thinner nature of these shafts and Dyneema connection. They work well on smaller Spanish Mackerel while still giving you the surface area to reduce the chance of tearing out the fish.
- Floats: Utilizing floats and float lines can make landing a Spanish Mackerel much easier as the float keeps pressure on the fish as it runs, even if the fish accelerates faster than you can control. You can let go of the float line without putting excessive pressure on the fish.
