Catchbook - Social Fishing Network

Mackerel Madness!

Summer Saltwater Fly-Fishing on the Dart

Fly-fishing is not just about catching sheer numbers of fish but every so often it is fun to just have an arm aching red letter day or two! The river Dart in Devon during the summer months has the large numbers of fish to provide these red letter days, although,  the numbers are made up mainly of the much maligned mackerel.

I use the word maligned as to many anglers the mackerel is a small, plentiful ( at times) fish, caught as quickly as possible, "winched" into the boat, or the shore, and dropped in a box to be used as bait. I agree totally with the view it's brillent bait but it is sad that many anglers, who can sometimes enjoy catching the bait as much as their main target, do not give the mackerel a fair chance at showing it's firm fighting qualities. Many anglers just asume mackerel do not fight that well and to them all i would recommend catching one on a fly rod. Fly fishing is the perfect way to catch mackerel and actually experience how much compressed energy these wonderful little fish have. Ironically fly-fishing can actually produce more fish than traditional lead weighted fly rigs particularly when the shoals are harrying their prey on the surface. Regularly I have been out on the Dart, the Solent, or in Plymouth Sound and up the Tamar and caught far greater numbers of mackerel than boats fishing traditional methods.

For tackle any standard trout rod will suffice and i use either a 10ft Sage Z axis 7 weight on the more breezy days with a team of three flies or a 8ft 5# Brook rod with a single fly when i am totally concentrating on experiencing the individual mackerel's fight. As for lines i use a clear saltwater intermediate for the team of three flies, in order to fish the point a little deeper and pick up any Sea Bass, which can have a tendency to lurk beneath the mackerel shoals, and a full floater for the smaller rod. Flies can be any small, size 4-12, bait fly. The old style resevoir fry lures work exceptionally well and my prefered flies are purely for mackerel are actually Alexandra's. Resevoir poopers for trount are deadly and brillent fun when used singly. It is worth using a more relevant local saltwater pattern on the point for the Sea Bass ( the blue and white deciever and the deciever pinfish from fulling mill are particularly good on the Dart). All of my flies are barbless so that i can return the vast majority of the mackerel i catch with ease. I love the way the little nutters power off with a trembling quiver as though being hooked did not even really happen.

The mouth of the River Dart is the perfect summer location, with Dartmouth a picturesque backdrop, to target these turbo charged bundles of compressed energy. Dartmouth has countless good hotels and i particularly recommend the Royal Castle Hotel and for a pre-fishing breakfast Al Frescos near the lower ferry. The best way to gain access to the best fishing is to find a boat, which are avaliable to hire in Dartmouth, and then the whole eastury is full of opportunities. Blind drifts in and around the mouth will produce fish and the area around Gunfield Point and the Castle Ferry Steps is particularly productive but targeting individual shoals is the most effective tactic. Sea birds will show you the location of active shoals on surface. Classic signs are some birds hovering, others dipping into, feeding and landing on the surface of disturbed water. When a shoal is near by it is impressive how quickly they change direction and the speed with which they travel. The whole experience of being near such a vibrant bio mass is enthralling. it is like an episode of the "Blue Planet" only you actually get to cast into the picture! When you have located a shoal you need to position the boat ahead of it's direction of travel and then place your cast ahead of the shoal. A simple retreive keeping just in touch with the flies will bring results on most occassions. Even when fishing for mackerel there are days when they do not seem interested and you wonder how your flies moved through so many fish without a take but even on these days you should still end up with a fish or five!

At low tide a few shoals of mackeral will be located around the mouth of the Dart between the Castles. These will normally move down through the eastury, past the town, harrying shoals of pin fry as they go, and they move upriver and can be found up above Diitisham on the higher tides. Upstream round the bend from Dittisham is a good area to flyfish at high water and produces some nice Sea Bass. As the shoals move up into the eastury on the rising tide more shoals come in from the sea so you can just fish around the mouth for the whole time. Care should be taken over impeding other river craft in the channel when following the shoals as it can be suprising how totally absorbing the fishing can be.  If i could fish at only one point of the tide it would be from high tide and on into the ebb. As the water flows out of the Dart, if you are fishing in and around the mouth the shoals come back down on the dropping tide past you. The fishing can be frantic and sometimes there can be several shoals within casting distance of the boat. As the tide drops like this the castle ferry steps ( on a late evening after the ferry has stopped running ) and the rocks below the castle are the spots I use to intercept these shoals from the shore. If in a boat you allow yourself to drifty out past the two castle you find the chances of picking up Sea Bass increase as this is where some good numbers can wait for food items being washed out on the tide.

Mackerel are, of course, present all over the country and well worth persuing with the fly whenever you find yourself near them. I am still suprised that this low cost brillent sport is not being enjoyed by more anglers.

What do you do when you find yourself with time on your hands on a tropical island in the Indian

 Ocean? Imagine the island in question was a de facto marine reserve due to it's proximity to a 

US military base.  For a fisherman I guess the answer is easy and so i managed to find a boat to hire. 

No fly rod, though having been unable to take mine, so "when in Rome" troll apparently according

to the locals!

The set up was simple: a small but very chunky boat rod c.8ft, a multiplyer reel loaded with

60,000 pound line, well not quite but it was a strength i had never seen before....tuna come

 into the lagoon apparently and one needs to be breaking strained up to the max, a wire

trace, and a magnum rapala lure.

The tactics were also simple motor along slowly and troll the rapalas about 300 metres behind

the boat at a gentle pace. Simple but very effective...we had only trolled for about 30 seconds

 when bang my rod was nearly ripped from my hand. And forget abouth bully a fish on a higher

poundage of line...this thing was angry....angry and fit...it was amazingly strong. After about

ten minutes our first fish came in to the side of the boat; a small Giant Trevellay. it would have

been some fish on a fly rod!

After this we had imagined and afternoon of fishing heaven with a stream of powerful trevellays

 capped off, hopefully with a wandering tuna, but we could only manage to catch a procession

of small barracuda. These fish were unfortunately out gunned by our tackle which was a shame

as once again they would have really fought on a fly rod.

Small Barracuda

As we trolled back to the dock we had a take which was much more substantial and had as

 imagining tuna steaks on the BBQ.

The fish took line, held deep, and generally appeared to be tiring much less quickly than my

friend holding the rod. Eventually after some coaxing and twenty minutes of sweat the very

large red fish came to the surface! Later we were informed it was a red snapper! I have still

never seen one so big but who knows...the fish like all the the early fish swam off never to be

formally identified!

The sport was frequent and an exciting change but i d still say if your going anywhere near

water take a travel fly rod...or a light telescopic spinning rod!

Red Snapper