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Somewhat new to the area. I have caught trout, redfish, flounder and jacks all out on the flats near St. Marks. I would love to add Spanish Mack to the list. Any tips on how to catch these fish would be greatly appreciated.

Move a little further offshore and look for bait pods. I've noticed that if we drift off a shallow flat catching trout and it drops from about 4 foot deep to 6 or 8, we will run into the lady fish first, then the Spanish. If you are fishing St. Marks, go out past the stake line. I am not sure if they are over there or not due to the dark water from all the run off.

I can tell you that we caught some in last weeks NFGFC tournament fishing West of the Lanark Ramp and about half way between US-98 and Dog Island. There is a large sand bar that runs out there and they were on the Dog Island side of that bar in about 6-8 feet of water.

Good Luck -
Steve Stinson

If you don't care what size you catch use small flashy lures... thin silver spoons work well, as do a number of small flashy lures. Some folks even use the white w/red stripe restaurant straws threaded in front of a treble hook to catch them. If you find bait midshore, you WILL find them. Diving birds are DEFINITELY your friends in helping you locate them. One of their key prey is glass minnows, similar in size if not even a bit smaller than creek minnows. Using thin silver spoons or thin tube shaped lures helps you "match the hatch."

If you find them feeding aggressively on a ball of bait, just casting in the midst will result in almost instant hookups. If you find them feeding really aggressively, you'll see them jumping out of the water and the surface will look like a blender has been turned on.

If on the other hand you're blind casting waters you hope to hold mackerel, mix up the retrieve. Sometimes they like fast retrieve, whereas other times they like slower erratic retrieves and will hit when you let your lure drop.

Fishing without wire will lift your hook-up ratio, but you WILL have lots of cut offs. If you've had cutoffs on artificials inshore you have almost certainly already been hooking them. I use a small length (6" or so) of green coated tieable wire ahead of my lures and if I find them feeding, catch plenty. It's when they're not feeding aggressively that wire really hurts your chances. They'll make you go crazy with multiple fish following your lure every cast but without biting.

One way we tend to catch bigger macks offshore is to keep a live pinfish under a bobber behind the boat. Spanish, cobia, and kings all will hit them and give a fun, fun time.

Tip for catching spaniards = fast retrieve.

Deeper water than trout. Flashy lure or white. Speedy retrieve. I like to set up a chum line to bring the Mack's in.

Like they said, reel really fast, you can't out reel them. Use small spoons, my favorite is a Clark Squid Spoon in size 00. You can use the regular clarkspoon in size 00 if you can't find the squid spoon (it has no red bead). I usually use a casting bubble with about 30 inches of 50lb mono tied to the spoon. It's called a bubble rig and is used a lot around PCB and west. The bubble is filled with water so you can cast the spoon a long way. When reeled fast the bubble splashes on the surface mimicking feeding fish. Also, Gotcha lures work real well, use the smaller sizes in silver.

This was a good post! Thanks everyone.

I never knew people targeted Spanish Mackerel. We catch some and eat some but never target them. They are fun to catch and eat well if eaten fresh. We run from them the same as we do gar fish when we find them. They can mess up some kind of tackle!

If you are looking for a great spot, East Pass between St. George and Dog Islands in October is your place.

Storm Paddle Tail soft swim bait