Sport On Our Beaches

While a holiday abroad may be off the cards this year, you don’t have to miss out on great food — catch and cook your own, says Nick Fisher

- Nick Fisher

OK, so your prospects of sitting outside a picture-perfect taverna on the shores of the Mediterranean, sipping Arctic-cold beer and eating finger-licking lush, charcoal-grilled sardines, have been seriously curtailed this summer.

But instead of crying into your lukewarm draught ale, why not seize the moment and go out and do something even better? Go and catch your own sardine. Build your own charcoal-burning grill. And prepare a perfect British seaside feast to rival any you might be served on the other side of the English Channel.

While you may be hard-pushed to catch a sardine off the English coast, mackerel stocks are doing well. Overall, their numbers have remained healthy, though in recent years there seems to be a trend of more mackerel migrating north to cooler waters. It’s as if the English Channel has begun to get too warm for them. However, so far this year, the Channel is at least three degrees cooler than it would usually be at this time.

Despite their abundant numbers, mackerel are not easy to catch on rod and line from the shore because they are usually found in deeper water. As with all fish, it depends on cycles of weather, cycles of bait fish and commercial fishing pressure. Having European supertrawlers fishing in the centre of the English Channel definitely isn’t going to help.

Wile and guile