Rickard Gustafsson | Saturday, 18 July 2026
We usually stay one week a bit north on the Swedish west coast each summer. So we did this year also, or almost a whole week. This week is spend swimming, fishing, eating ice cream. This time of the year is usually a good time for mackerel fishing. But I’ve seen the ocean change over the years. Less fish caught, less life in the ocean and more algae in the water.
This year it is a lot of algae in the ocean, though a bit less of it covering the seaweeds on the rocky shorelines. But a lot of it every where else.
Something has been different this year. The first evening by the ocean there were a decent amount of small herrings swimming around. The fish that has been gone the latest years. So absent that people fishing for them has quit or even went bankrupt. But now they were there. And this wasn’t in a good location.
The small herrings swimming around kept showing up everywhere we went in the ocean. In the good spots there were millions of them. I’ve not seen anything like it over the decade I’ve stayed here during the summer. So plentiful of them that it looks like it is raining when they feed in the surface. It even sounds like it is raining when so many herrings are feeding in the surface.
If the baitfish are there the predators are seldom far away. I didn’t find many seatrouts but that is fine when you have plenty of mackerel to fish for instead. So this week I’ve sight fished for mackerel. That’s pretty exciting to stand around waiting for the hunting school of mackerel to show up in casting distance. First you spot the herring suddenly start to jump up in the air. Second you see the mackerel hunting for them flying up in the air during the hunt. Then you do your best to place the fly in there and hope a mackerel will pick your fly amount thousands of herrings that looks almost the same as your fly.
You strip strip strip and suddenly something fast takes off with your fly. Finally some use for the turbo frog stripping style that wasn’t successful in Malaysia.
A mackerel never stops swimming. It just becomes a bit slower. Not even after it is dead, long after it is dead it can start to jolt around.
The mackerel is a sensitive fish in many ways. If you plan to release it do it fast without touching the fish. If you manage to do that it has a good chance of survival. If you plan to eat it, it is best to consume it as fast as possible. Or else cool it as quickly as possible. As the meat is very sensitive also.
The mackerel will usually take anything it sees. Even a bare and shiny hook. But this week I saw that they can be a bit selective also. I didn’t get anything on my dropper fly, only my main fly which was some baitfish variation. My latest creation of craftfur and zonker was a very good imitation of the small herring the mackerel did hunt now. Another fly that has been very successful is a simple craftfur sandeel with purple back and white stomach. That fly has caught mackerel when the sakibi rigs has failed next to me.
The craftfur zonker bait fish is quite simple. A medium shanked hook, tie in at small strip of craft fur in the back colour. Build the head from zonker fur cut from the strip and add a small pinch of craftfur for the stomach at the end. And eyes. Form the head with UV glue. But I guess just a strip of zonker for the back would just as effective. But here you get a very light fly with little air resistance.
You can get some “interesting” bycatches when fishing for mackerel also. I’ve had to fight seagulls for my fish. That’s an interesting one, when the fish comes to the surface and it suddenly becomes airborne. For real and not just by jumping.
Cheers, Rickard
PoD: Me turbo frog stripping the fly. The stripping tray doesn’t have to bother at this moment.