Learning Spanish

[Times photo: Terry Tomalin]

Rodney Ristau and Frank “Tre” Gilliam III, age 3, show off a big Spanish mackerel they caught from a patch of limestone in the gulf west of Dunedin.

TARPON SPRINGS - You can get up early, catch bait, head offshore and wait all day for that one monster king mackerel to bite. Or you could sleep late, hire a guide, hang close to shore and catch Spanish mackerel until your arms get tired.,

"The kids won't last more than a couple of hours," I told Rodney Ristau, who guides out of the Port Tarpon Marina. "Hopefully we'll catch a couple of fish and be back in time for lunch."

Ristau laughed.

"You'll catch a couple of dozen fish and be back in time for breakfast," he said.

When you take a couple 3-year-olds fishing, you need to keep them entertained.

"I love taking kids fishing," Ristau said as he motored out past Anclote Key. "But to tell you the truth, I have learned over the years that kids that age have as much fun playing with the bait as they do catching fish."

And looking at the 100 or more scaled sardines that crowded the 55-gallon livewell aboard Ristau's Avenger, my son, Kai, and his cousin, Frank "Tre" Gilliam III, would have a full day just catching whitebait with the scoop net.

When it comes to catching, there are two types of angler: those who care about quality, and those who care about quantity. If you are a "quality" angler, you are willing to invest the time it takes to catch a trophy fish. But if you are a "quantity" angler, you are more interested in action. You want immediate gratification. If 10 minutes pass with a bite, you are ready to pull anchor and head to another spot.

When working, I am usually after a quality fish for a photo. But when I take my son fishing, quantity counts.

That is why Spanish mackerel are a good choice for heart-pounding, nonstop angling action. A schooling species closely related to the much-heralded king mackerel, Scomberomorus cavalla, the smaller Spanish mackerel is a voracious feeder. It is not uncommon to clean a "Spannie" destined for the table and find a dozen or more baitfish in its gullet.

"You have to be ready," Ristau told His young charges. "As soon as the bait hits the water, you'll have a fish on."

To get the mackerel fired up, Ristau tossed out a few handfuls of "crushed" bait. The wounded sardines flashed across the surface, and in less than a minute mackerel sliced through the water, picking off the crippled baits.

After mackerel of any species, be it Spanish, king or cero, work themselves into a feeding frenzy, you can toss out anything shiny - fly, spoon or bucktail jig - and catch fish to the point of boredom. As a boy, we enjoyed an annual mackerel run in the summers off the coast of Maine. We would cast into the schools and catch three, sometimes four or five, of the small Atlantic macks on brightly-colored, multiple-hook "Christmas tree" rigs.

Here on the west coast of Florida, Ristau catches just as many fish with the multiple-rod, multiple-bait method.

"If you have two lines in the water, you will have two fish on at a time," he said. "If you have three lines in the water, you will have three fish on at a time."

The spot Ristau picked to fish was nothing special, just a patch of limestone about a mile off the beach that he had come across one day returning from another charter.

But the Suncoast is littered with great Spanish mackerel spots - wrecks, hard bottom and artificial reefs - that produce during the fall and spring migrations.

If you are lucky, you also stand a chance of catching a king mackerel, if it is hooked just right and doesn't cut through the thin wire leader favored by Spanish mackerel anglers.

On this fall morning Ristau saw that both boys caught fish, but as expected they soon lost interest with the game fish and focused on the bait.

"Now if you keep throwing the bait over the side we won't have any left to catch the fish," Ristau told the youngsters.

They pretended to listen, then a minute later resumed the rescue of sardines from the livewell.

Ristau laughed and kept fishing.

"We could keep this up all day," he said. "How many fish do you want to catch?"

I looked at my watch and realized that we had been out only an hour, but we had caught at least 20 fish. The boys had laid down on the foredeck and looked ready for a nap.

"Let's go," I said. "Mission accomplished."

Ristau hauled in his anchor. He tossed the rest of the bait over the gunwale, as if to remind the mackerel to come back, then headed toward the marina.

"I wish all my charters were as easy as this," he said.

Scomberomorus maculatus

RANGE: Western Atlantic from Cape Cod to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

REMARKS: Spanish mackerel can be distinguished from other species by the presence of bronze or yellow spots and a lack of stripes.

TACKLE: The preferred method is live bait, but Spanish also hit a variety of artificial lures, including spoons and bucktail jigs, as well as saltwater flies.

SIZE: Spanish mackerel in the five- to seven-pound range are considered large, with a 10-pounder considered a real monster.

WORLD RECORD: 13 pounds, taken at Ocracoke Inlet in North Carolina on Nov. 4, 1987.

REGULATIONS: 12-inch fork length; 15 fish per day.

WHEN: Saturday (12/4)

PRIZE: $1,000 for largest Spanish mackerel

REGISTER: 6-8 p.m. today at Billy's Stonecrab, 1120 Pinellas Bayway, Tierra Verde

ENTRY FEE: $107 per boat

INFORMATION: Billy Moore, (727) 542-3900