Del Cooper casts a line for the not always popular vertically striped silvery green-blue-black fish.

TV reporter Del Cooper is sea fishing for mackerel. As a hobby, it is generally considered a summer fishery as schools of mackerel overwinter in deeper waters and return to British shores from spring. Bait varies from shiny lures to feathers and chopped mackerel or fish. The Atlantic mackerel is also called Boston, Norwegian or Scottish mackerel. Hardly surprising to know then that a commercial mackerel war raged quietly over North Atlantic stocks and quotas.

The fishery is rated as sustainable and has overcome overfishing in the sixties and an image problem in the seventies and eighties. It has bounced back on menus as healthily high in omega 3 and is served as sashimi, tartare and still traditionally eaten smoked or canned. It remains a popular fish with sea anglers and day fish and trippers. Mackerel means striped or spotted and the characteristic schooling marks help individual mackerel to signal changes in position and ward off predators. Underwater displays of pelagic schooling fish are dazzling and akin to starlings above water. Mackerel have the ability to retract fins and fork tails and streamline bodies for fast direction changes.