Big Macs & Clams

BIG MACS – MACKEREL

My favorite is mackerel, and when prepared properly, will catch about anything that swims, with the exception of perch, king fish and weakies in some locations.

Very rarely have I ever had my hands on fresh Mac, except in prime season, so I used the frozen stuff nearly all the time. I don’t like what Kosher Salt does to these baits, so I don’t use it at al. This means that whenever I “prep” for the day usually gets used that day. Unless I have a cooler with ice. Even then, two days is the life of these baits.

When there were a lot of bass around, I would usually do five mac’s at a time. This gave me 15 baits’ including the heads. Due to the decline in numbers and sizes, the last year I fished for bass I dropped down to three mac’s, as I was splitting the filets in half. This gave me 12 baits’ excluding the heads, when I’m using chucks of clam on the first hook.

After listening to all the whining about catching a lot of small fluke, I suggested to many of those whiners to use a large strip of mackerel rigged on a single 6/0 hook.

All of them chose to ignore my advice, but these baits accounted for three fish one afternoon off the 12th Street Pier, from eighteen inches to twenty-four inches, and a dozen other, all over eighteen here and there.

Here’s my recipe for Mac strips. Take two zip lock plastic bags, put one inside the other. Thaw the Mac’s to the point where you can removed the filets from the carcass without losing any juice. Split the filets length wise and put the baits inside the double bags, using a 50/50 ratio. Combine the clear Sheddar Scent. I would use about two ounces of this mix per bag. Zip up the bags and lay flat in fridge. About ever half hour give the bags a good massage. Return to fridge. Repeat the massage every half hour for four hours. The baits are now ready.

b) CLAMS

I was using the semi-frozen half-pints, about three whole clams in each container. Their salting methods were less than I wanted, so I took the salting process a step further. Again, the doubled zip-locks, two tubs of clams, six heaping tablespoons of kosher salk, two ounces of the shedder scent mix, and use the same massaging process as the mackerel.