When do smalll Mackerel that are going to be used as bait start running in nj?

Question

When do smalll Mackerel that are going to be used as bait start running in nj? Thanks

Answer 1

Tinker mackerels are caught during the summer on Long Island. Used to be tons of them in the water, now not so many. If there are any in your neck of the woods in New Jersey, they should be in the water now.

Answer 2

There is generally two mackerel runs in NJ a Late Fall, Early Winter and a late winter/Early spring.

You have to keep an eye out on the reports, because they start seeing evidence of the big runs about a week or so before the big one come in.

Each run can last a week or a couple weeks, but not much longer than that.

Mackerel shoals are uniform to size class. Meaning, they tend to school with others of the same size. That's not to say that once you locate a shoal that you won't catch different sized mackerel, what happens is that different schools layer each other into a shoal. If you find the right size, mark the depth and drop to that point repeated or until the school moves.