Summer boating and fishing go together like strawberries and cream. The sun shines, the sea is flat calm (well it is sometimes) and there is an overwhelming urge to drop the anchor and switch off the engine so you can relax in contented silence and catch a few fish. But you don’t have to drop anchor to catch fish. On the contrary, it is much easier on the drift and far less of a chore.

One of the great pleasures of the peace and tranquillity that comes when the engine is switched off is the fact that, before long, you tend to have seagulls for company. They might include kittiwakes, herring gulls and great black backed gulls squabbling over tidbits of food. In fact where I fish off South Devon I am frequently entertained by guillemots diving to 14 metres for sandeel.

Easy pickings
So what can you expect to catch without too much effort? Top of the list of course is mackerel that come up shimmering in the sunshine, hanging from your feathers, flashing blue, green and silver. Believe me, there is a world of difference eating one freshly pulled from the sea to eating one that’s been sitting on a supermarket shelf for an age. And not only are they delicious but they are also excellent bait, their oily flesh proving a big lure for almost any specie.

What do you need?
Use a string of six coloured feathers (they can be plastic ones) with a weight to suit your rod. Use the heaviest it will comfortably take because that will make the feathers work better on the drop. Mackerel are easy to catch once the depth they are feeding at is found. Drop to the bottom and then work your way back to the surface. Where you find them is the depth they should stay at, but there is of course no guarantee of this.

Fed up with hauling in mackerel?
If you want a new challenge, find a sandbank where flat fish are feeding on sandeels and you can drift over it without losing tackle to rocks. You can have some fun with plaice or maybe a dab or two. These areas can also be home to red gurnard and the occasional bream, bass or ray. A long two-hook trace (up to about seven feet with 1/0 hooks and beads above) will be all you need. Use a boom above the swivel with the appropriate weight (a four-ounce grip weight should be about right) and then bait with strips of the mackerel you have just caught. When you catch fish, note the GPS number and drift the same mark again. There is usually more than one in an area. And if you have big prawns on board, cooked or uncooked, split them long ways and put them on the hook above the mackerel strip.

Angling Advice with David Greenwood

There is a good deal of medical opinion to support the suggestion that red wine is good for you. Along with dark chocolate, garlic and almonds, it contains substances that help reduce your blood pressure. Two glasses per day is the recommended dose and my doctor goes so far as to say that, of all the natural remedies, red wine is the most efficacious and therefore on no account should it be missed.

So what has this got to do with fishing and fishing kit? Well it may not have escaped your notice that oily fish is also on the ‘good food’ list, so if you include mackerel among your target species (precisely as Ted has done in this month’s angling advice) you can do yourself good on at least two counts . . .

Firstly the act of fishing itself can relieve stress and thereby assist in lowering blood pressure. And secondly, by eating your catch of mackerel, you are following very well established medical advice. For these reasons it makes sound sense to keep a boat rod armed and ready for use at short notice on your boat.

Traditionally, you will have a line of up to six feathers as lures, each one with a hook attached to it. It is not uncommon to have more than one mackerel strike as the line is played out, so it makes sense to have plenty of hooks on the line for them to go at as soon as the shoal turns up.

However, a pre-armed boat rod in the cockpit or wheelhouse can present a hazard to the crew, so the best way to keep those murderous hooks from bare flesh is to use a set of wine corks. Half a cork is the perfect recipient for the sharp end of a fish hook when not in use and, if you follow doctor’s orders, you should have plenty of them to spare.