After a few mirthless, meritless outings The Rod is pleased to report a successful outing on the sea near Dartmouth to fish a few tasty mackerel out of the English channel! Our vivacious vessel for the day would be the inimitable Saltwind, captained by the equally inimitable "Dave".
On the way out to sea the chop progressively grew choppier and we passed some delightful historical buildings. We passed seagulls and sailboats. Certain crew members passed some of their lunch!
And then before you knew it, we were fishing the sandbar. It was slow going. Our prawn baited hooks bounced along the bottom of the ocean being completely ignored by everything.
An hour of 'drifting the bottom' later, we had turned up nothing so our venerable skipper decided to dial up the intensity by introducing some 'mackerel feathering'. Dave had an extremely productive mackerel setup - two plain hooks with a trio of fluorescent green beads above each, weighted solidly with lead at the bottom. The rig is constructed using 60lb line and is notably absent of feathers.
Dave demonstrated the technique: drop the line to the bottom as fast as you can, then quickly wind it up again, using the hauling technique. Invariably a mackerel or two would attach themselves to the hooks. The Rod had a crack at it to ensure there was no sleight of hand and indeed the method works. Before long we had a bucketful of mackerel. Behold the crystal clear depths of their eyes!
The mackerel were gutted and whisked back to dry land to be presented to a hot flame..
... with most satisfactory results ...
Served with
potato gratin and steamed broccoli (broccoli being a
TELTHS favourite)
After dinner we enjoyed toasting marshmallows on the remaining embers of the fire... The Rod has has a particular technique to offer for this - use Two Rods in order to have rotational purchase on the fast melting sweet...
