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Yet, despite how things look at the water’s edge, scientists say mackerel are undeniably on the decline a 2021 assessment by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) found that spawning-age stock was at the lowest level ever recorded, prompting a flurry of management measures, from a 50 percent reduction in quota for commercial harvesters to a catch limit on the recreational fishery-a first for a fishery that once had no maximum catch.įor some, these changes have been hard to accept, not least because the behavior of mackerel belies their downward trajectory as their numbers shrink, they cluster together more, creating the impression that the fish are as plentiful as ever. For anglers, the experience is much the same: drop a line of hooks in the water in the summer, and you’ll soon be hauling in a string of mackerel, like bunting celebrating the season.
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Video courtesy of Yarmouth & Acadian ShoresĪs far as fish carnage goes, the mackerel toss is pretty minimal-the competition runs through five cases of a few dozen fish each, acquired by donation from a local commercial fishing outfit-but the act of hurling mackerel by the fistful nonetheless gives an impression of almost infinite bounty. The mackerel toss is one of the more unusual activities at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia’s Seafest. Your browser does not support the video element. “It’s not like throwing beanbags,” Warner says with a chuckle. As the competition begins, pairs line up at either end of the wharf, two teams at a time the first toss of the event unspools a scream from the seagulls hovering overhead, and soon, the wharf is littered with the results of throws too short or too wide, as the fish fly out of people’s grasp. They’re a local fish that often turns up on fishing lines and in frying pans in the community, but they can also be experienced as something else entirely: a slippery, hand-sized projectile for a competitor to chuck in batches of 15 as their teammate attempts to catch the fish in a plastic bucket held in outstretched arms. Along the way, they’re often plucked from the water, with some ending up in cases on a wharf in downtown Yarmouth, a small town on the southern tip of Nova Scotia, where in July 2021 volunteers for Seafest are unloading those cases in preparation for one of the fishing festival’s most incongruously popular events: the 12th-annual mackerel toss.Īs he watches preparations from behind the line of sawhorses meant to contain spectators, Dave Warner, Seafest’s former president, explains that mackerel are a logical choice for the event. But a sure sign of summer’s arrival is the sudden presence of Atlantic mackerel, which first appear as the trees are becoming flush with leaves in May, and depart with the coming of cool temperatures in the fall, schooling in enormous numbers on their migration up and down the coast. Summer in Atlantic Canada can be an unreliable thing, emerging reluctantly from the damp cold of spring. Listen now, download, or subscribe to “Hakai Magazine Audio Edition” through your favorite podcast app. This article is also available in audio format.
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Stream or download audio For this article Janu| 3,100 words, about 16 minutes Share this article Photo by Chris Gomersall/2020Vision/Minden Pictures Holy Mackerel, Where’d You Go? A beloved fish with a rich history has become hard to find-will it rise again? Authored by This highly migratory fish is caught for food and bait in recreational and commercial fisheries and is an important link in marine food webs. Mackerel have an eastern and a western population in the Atlantic.