Jiggery-Pokery

Bored with “feathering”, Paul Quagliana looks at “shore jigging” for mackerel — a different method for landing this marvellous and remarkable sea fish

Chesil Beach holds a special place in my heart, as it does for many sea anglers — it is so legendary that to fish there is a pilgrimage that many anglers have to make, regardless of distances involved. Since moving to Dorset about 15 years ago, I have worn a furrow along the roads I take to reach it — I almost see it as a second home. A great arc of shingle about 18 miles long, deep water, mysterious, tropical on a tranquil day, fearsome in a storm, steeped in history and home to a multitude of species. As far removed from the mud, galloping tides and the flounders of my native Morecambe Bay as I could get. 

The beach is a magnet for many different fish species, including exotics such as trigger fish, and even the mighty sunfish is occasionally seen drifting along its shores, its shark-like dorsal fin flopping lazily above the water’s surface. Come spring through to late autumn and even winter, it can at times also abound with vast shoals of mackerel — which in turn attracts vast shoals of anglers.

I will never forget the first mackerel I hooked from the beach in the early 2000s — four of them on a six-string of “feathers” — slanting silver up through the water, each trying to go its own way against the resistance of the rod that juddered in my hands. I had caught “macks” as a teenager with my parents in Anglesey from a boat, but to catch them from the shore was a new pleasure.

Mackerel feathers generally come equipped with six dressed hooks on a main trace and are many and varied. You can still get the natural hackle type, but synthetic materials have prevailed. Whatever you use, I would go for white or silvery options.

Industrial form of harvest