Seeing as the weather has been settled for a while and conditions looked good for a mackerel or two off the beach, I decided to take our son Alex for a promised session for him to catch a fish.

Arrived at Seaford beach at around 8am and set up his small spinning rod with a single Dexter wedge and it wasn’t long before he was getting into the swing of things. With each cast, his distance was improving and he was managing to hoof it quite a way considering how light the rod was.

At about 8.30, I saw some activity not too far out, so guided Alex where to cast and he managed to hit the right spot straight away. Soon enough, the little rod was bending and bouncing away with the weight of a fighting mackerel. Within a short while, he got it in and beached the little scrapper.

He was soon away again and with the mackerel shoals now very close to the shoreline, he had no difficulty reaching them. It wasn’t long before I heard the cry “I’ve got another one” and I had to put the camera down and take the fish off the hook, dispatch it and bag it.

By now, the shoals were in a feeding frenzy and they were so close, they were right up to the waters edge, chasing small sprats which ended up beaching themselves in an attempt at evading their pursuers. I could see along the beach, people were just picking up handfuls of the small silver fish – much to the disgust of the many gulls circling for an easy meal. As not to waste such a fine little fish, we had a few ourselves!

This carried on for quite some time and I could see anglers along the shoreline having a bumper session. Meanwhile, Alex was continuing to have a right old time, bringing fish after fish. I couldn’t resist it, so asking if he needed a break, I kindly took the rod from him to give his arms a rest – see how kind I am! While I was having a chuck, the sprats kept leaping up onto the beach in their reckless escape attempts.

It wasn’t too long before I decided that we had enough mackerel for our needs (about a dozen), some for supper and some for bait, so packed up and went off to get Alex the ice-cream that he’d been after and had gone on about – again and again. To be honest I was ready for a cup of well earned coffee and a sit down!

And so we left after a very entertaining morning, with the bonus of a few fish. Alex enjoyed himself and seems to be getting the fishing bug from me – although I have a sneaking suspicion that it was the ice-cream offer that got him out of the house. Some of the the mackerel have now been put in the fridge and ready for an evening session down at Brighton Marina tonight. Hopefully there will be obliging bass hanging around ready for dad.