The Chub Mackerel Invasion

Atlantic chub mackerel, Scomber colias, were once essentially absent from our little corner of the Atlantic. The species started to show up in offshore waters in the late 2000's and were being substantially commercially harvested by 2013 and had become an important baitfish for large pelagic fish, as according to a fissues article by Angelo Peluso in 2017. That year, 2017, schools of chub mackerel showed up at Watch Hill, and I caught my first of the species with Mark Philippe in August of that year (flyfishingcts.blogspot.com).

In 2018, chub mackerel were definitely around in shore and near shore again, though I didn't see them. They seemed a little more spread out. Then came 2019....
This year, I've seen chub mackerel all the way from Point Judith to Niantic and friends have seen them almost to the mouth of the Connecticut River. There are tons of them, they are all over, and they are absolutely chewing through small bait. The froth feeds performed by these fish are both audible and visible from a long way off, sounding like a waterfall or a very isolated heavy downpour. If not in a concentration of bait in a single spot, they move up and down slicks so rapidly they are hard to catch up to even in a boat at times. And they are indeed fairly sporting on light tackle. Over the last few weeks, Noah and I have chased them around in kayaks, and I've targeted them on a number of friends' boats. I fished for them with small flies tied on size 3-6 hooks, and on both a 5wt and a 10wt. Interestingly, what rod I was using made next to no difference in the quality of the fight. This is something my friend Captain Ian Devlin has noticed as well. Regardless, they have been abundant and it's fun to pull on a few, though watching them feed is more than enough for me to be happy!

They do bleed a lot.

On there own the chub mackerel a pretty cool, but this year they've become so abundant that they may be turning into viable forage for sharks, bluefish, and potentially striped bass. While drifting in an area where tons of chub mackerel were feeding, Patrick Barone was jigging a metal while I continued to fish the kind of small flies the chub mackerel were eating. All of a sudden, Patrick stuck a decent sized bass. When he got it up, it was being followed by a much bigger fish. I quickly tied on a big Game Changer, hoping the follower would stay around and give me a shot at it. Unfortunately that didn't happen. But it was pretty clear that these fish were there because the mackerel were, either to eat the mackerel themselves, eat whatever the mackerel may have been leaving behind, or possibly even eating the scraps dropped by bluefish that may have been eating the mackerel. But where we were, there were really limited reasons for there to be sizable bass in that particular spot at that time of year. They must have been drawn to the chub mackerel. I'm a bit skeptical that large stripers would chase down these fish too often, they aren't exactly like adult bunker or Atlantic mackerel, much harder to pin in an ambush spot. So these won't be a viable replacement for menhaden, not for striped bass forage. But they may well become a viable and important inshore baitfish in the future. Time will tell, and time will tell if they need to be regulated outside of the commercial sector. Bunker are, so these certainly should be, being both useful bait and a good food fish. Be vigilant in the future for opportunities for advocacy in that department, I'll be paying attention. And obviously the Fissues team is paying attention to chub mackerel. This is a rare circumstance of a new native fish abruptly showing up, it's a really fascinating thing to see.

photo courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

photo courtesy Ian Scott Devlin
I'm not sure what I was looking at.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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