We start catching these guys in mid-May as they come inshore. We usually spend an off-day fishing for them to use as bait for the
rest of the year. It's nothing for two of us to catch 300-400 of them. Since I have plenty of freezer space, I dry them off and freeze
them individually for great bait all year. They make great baits for stripers, sharks, fluke, sea bass, and, of course, tuna. I will have a couple
of hundred rigged for tuna fishing during the summer. The old timers used to spend hours rigging them into daisy-chains or even whole spreader bars loaded
with mackerel.
Not only do they make great bait, but they are also great on the grill. I grew up catching them at the east end of the Cape Cod Canal and smoking them on the grill.
That really is a tasty treat that we've eschewed for the boneless fillets of cod and haddock. Too bad.
As the fall rolls around, the waters on top of Stellwagen Bank get flooded with schools of mackerel. This brings with them hundreds of whales, porbeagle sharks, seals,
tuna, and all types of sea birds. It's an amazing site to see that much life in one area.
