Gill netting ban makes Spanish mackerel easy to catch in February
There are no guarantees in fishing, but catching Spanish mackerel in South Florida during the winter is as close as an angler can get to a sure thing.
February is a great time to catch the fish from
Stuart to Key West. Top spots include off South Beach, Haulover Beach and Hallandale Beach, along the boundaries of Everglades National Park, the Gulf waters of the Lower Florida Keys and the Peck’s Lake area south of St. Lucie Inlet.
The fish are aggressive, they eat a variety of baits and lures, and they taste great. The daily bag limit is 15 Spanish mackerel measuring at least 12 inches from the tip of the nose to the fork of the tail, which is enough to provide several meals for your family and friends.
The fishing is so good because of a constitutional amendment to ban gill netting in state waters that took effect on July 1, 1995. Before the ban, commercial operations with big nets would encircle entire schools of mackerel, and few fish escaped. The ban, which was approved by 72 percent of Florida’s voters in November of 1994, immediately improved the Spanish mackerel fishing, especially in South Florida.
One year after the amendment passed, my friends and I caught mackerel up to 7 pounds off Hallandale. A year earlier, our biggest Spanish in the same spot had weighed 2 pounds.
Another memorable mackerel trip was in Key West with captain Alan Sherman of Miami. Sherman and I had been fishing for mangrove snapper in shallow Gulf waters north of Key West when we saw splashing caused by several acres of Spanish mackerel.
For the next two hours, we emptied Sherman’s tackle box of every rusted spoon, beat-up jig and corroded crankbait he owned. Whenever the bite slowed, we waited 30 seconds for the roaming mackerel to start jumping and headed over.
Captain Richard Stanczyk, who owns Bud N’ Mary’s Marina in Islamorada, got hooked on fishing as a boy catching Spanish mackerel in Biscayne Bay with his grandfather in 1955. The mackerel fishing is so consistently good in the Keys now, it reminds him of the old days.
“This is a direct result of no netting,” said Stanczyk, whose favorite mackerel spot is near Sprigger Bank in the Gulf of Mexico, which is about 25 miles west of his marina and about six miles north of Marathon.
Stanczyk likes to anchor his boat in 10 to 12 feet of water, put out a chum bag and then cast live shrimp on 6-pound spinning rods. Once the ravenous mackerel start biting, he will use bucktail jigs tipped with shrimp, spoons and Rat-LTraps.
He especially loves to catch the fish on a fly rod using flashy weighted flies.
The fishing is so good, about all a person has to do to catch a Spanish mackerel is hit the water with a cast.
“You take a 10-year-old kid and let him do this right here and you’re liable to make him an addict,” Stanczyk said, adding, “Where can you go with grandpa, the father and the kid where all three can participate?”
I took my father, Lloyd, fishing with Mark Nichols, the founder and owner of D.O.A. Lures in Stuart at Peck’s Lake, where it’s easy to locate the mackerel: Just look for the commercial boats cast-netting the fish, which is legal.
Nichols gave us light spinning outfits rigged with his company’s TerrorEyz baitfish imitation. He likes the pearl-colored version because the white color looks like the flash of a pilchard as it tries to evade an attacking mackerel.
“Just cast it and jerk the heck out of it,” Nichols said. “Pretend like you’re trying to take it away from the fish.”
Occasionally, the mackerel took the lures from us, chomping the soft-plastic
TerrorEyz bodies in half. Besides being a great fisherman, Nichols never runs out of lures, and we soon had more than enough fish for our families and friends.
Unlike its stronger-tasting cousin the king mackerel, Spanish mackerel have a fine, almost delicate flavor, and they are excellent grilled, broiled, smoked and even microwaved.
The fish don’t freeze well, so they are best eaten within a few days after they are caught. Sprinkling fillets with Greek or Everglades seasoning and broiling them for five to 10 minutes in the oven is an easy, delicious way to prepare mackerel. Seasoned fillets also can be cooked on high in a microwave oven for two to three minutes.
Spanish mackerel are also great smoked. Soak the fillets with the skin on for 12 to 36 hours in a brine solution in the refrigerator, then put the fillets in a smoker for several hours. The smoked fish is great to eat as is or it can be used to make fish dip, which will have people asking you to catch more. And that’s something you can pretty much guarantee them.