Fish Tails; the Difference between a King and a Spanish mackerel
A Kingfish by any other name is a summons or even jail time it your that stupid. The first king mackerel have appeared with most of them falling within the 10 to 20 pound class, and a few smokers at 48 inches today, caught on spoons to trolleys with live suspended baits. Ladies, Jack mackerels, Jack Crevalles and large Threadfins were the choice live baits of the T head, with Threads taking in monster twenty inch plus Spanish and the Jacks as prime for the Kings, both schoolies and smokers. Rolling Tarpon a plenty but no hook ups today. The schoolies were living up to their names as they were congregated in schools of 50 to 100 or more as they boiled the pods of baits about and around the boards of the Venice Pier at Sharky’s in Florida. The inshore waters were black with bait and the pier loaded with anglers catching plenty a fish and not a clue as to what it was they were catching other than it was a fish or maybe a mackerel; think God it did not have wings or they might have thought it was a bird. I even heard one Father tell his son it was to small to be a Kingfish. Ehhh? I wondered what he was when he was born, a Gnome.
On my son, Edwin’s, last cast with a silver cast master, jigging along at a medium retrieve using a Pflueger loaded with Big Game Trilene Blue 12 pound test, he hung on to a fish which seemed to pull in an odd fashion. Drag pulling mamma it was at twenty-one inches at the fork, this Cero Mackerel was not caught on his lure but on another. Somehow, his hook had slid through the eye of the barrel swivel attached to a leader, half-ounce weight and Clark Spoon with fish attached. What are the odds? I took that same Clark Spoon, attached to my line and casted out this Clark Spoon, ripping it in across the surface of the lapping northwestern waves as a monster of a fish slammed the spoon and peeled out about 150 yards of my twelve-pound test fluorocarbon. My Pflueger reel and Ugly Stik bowed in agony as the line sang a tune in the wind. Twenty minutes later Edwin, my son, dropped the bridge net, and we brought up a 26 inch at the fork Schoolie kingfish. The person standing next to me said wow nice Spanish Mackerel, I did not think they got that big. You know you have to take a hunters safety course in order to hunt. They ought to make one take a fishing etiquettes and I.D. test before allowing one to go fishing, if I had it my way!
You know folks if a Game Warden had been present today Edwin and I would have been the only people left on the pier, just about, with the exception of a couple of friends I know who also know what their doing, like Barry Garmen. The rest would be in county, waiting bail on Monday, maybe reading the rules and regulations on Florida Saltwater Fishing Laws. Especially the picture pages on the differences between the different mackerels and yes the do come small!
Fish Tails 101
It is all in the tails folks, from the dorsal to the tail and you too can tell the difference. Some of you experts say it is in the color or spots and sometimes that works but sometimes all mackerel look similar and it can be confusing even to an expert just by judging it spots. All fish have a lateral line on them. Some are colored in scale others in an actual line, like the Mackerels. By looking at this line, you can save yourself the embarrassment of a ticket and be an expert too. King Mackerels have a break or sudden drop in their lateral line in the shape of a slanted “L”. Spanish and all the other mackerels have either a wavy or dropping lateral line with no slanted “L” shape. In addition, Kingfish minimal slot is 24 inches at the fork to keep with a possession limit of two per person. All other mackerels are minimal slot 12” at the fork, with 15 fish in possession per person. Stupid is not looking for that slanted “L”. “FISH ON!”
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