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How to catch Spanish mackerel
Spanish mackerel feed in 64–84°F water and bite best at 68–78°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 20 waters; in October they are at their peak in The Panhandle, The Big Bend & Nature Coast, Tampa Bay & Sarasota and 5 more.
About
The Spanish mackerel: gold spots, a mouth of needles and a run in the spring and fall that fills every pass and beach with them. A bluewater fish that comes inshore.
How to fish it
Find the birds. Cast past the school and reel fast. Long-shank hooks or a short wire trace — they bite through mono. Keep them on ice; they turn fast.
What it eats
Live bait for it
Glass minnows (bay anchovies)Thrown by the handful as chum for Spanish, trout and ladyfish, or several on a tiny hook.
Pilchards (whitebait)Free-lined or under a cork, hooked through the nose on a #1 to 2/0 circle hook. The one bait that catches everything inshore.
Threadfin herring (greenbacks)Nose-hooked on a circle hook and free-lined, or slow-trolled. Fragile — handle them wet and fast.
Spanish sardinesNose-hooked and free-lined in a chum slick, or slow-trolled on a stinger rig.What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itThe rule
not confirmed hereMinimum size and bag limit apply; confirm the current numbers at MyFWC.
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
Spanish mackerel follow the bait and the 70°F line. They winter off south Florida and the Keys, flood the Florida passes and beaches in March, and work north through the spring — the Panhandle in April, the Carolinas in May, the Chesapeake by June, a few reaching New York in a warm summer. On the Gulf they push on to Louisiana and Texas. They spawn nearshore through the summer, then the fall run brings them back south down every beach in September and October, blitzing glass minnows under the birds. Gotcha plugs, fast retrieves and a short wire trace.