It’s low-tech, fun, and you can be the hero of the smoker or the barbecue grill. Spanish mackerel fishing is brisk and bountiful in Florida Bay right now and probably will be until April. Catching a limit of 15 per person per day is no problem, although some anglers stop well short of a limit to go after other species.

“It’s something anybody can catch if they follow a few basic rules,” said captain Richard Stanczyk, owner of Bud n’ Mary’s Fishing Marina in Islamorada.

And the rules are pretty basic: light spinning gear in the six- to eight-pound class or fly rod; psychedelic-hued jigs, plugs or flies retrieved erratically; current flowing in the same direction that the wind is blowing; chum; and fresh bait such as shrimp or pilchards if water temperatures fall below 70 degrees.

Strong shark

On a recent expedition aboard the 34-foot B n’ M, Stanczyk, visiting captain Dave Peck of Manteo, N.C., and three South Florida guests bagged 32 Spanish mackerel up to seven pounds, along with five bluefish. Peck also released an 80-pound blacktip shark using a chunk of mackerel for bait, and promptly broke his spinning rod when the shark powered away.

“First time in a long time,” Peck said, shaking his head. Then he went back to rigging mackerel jigs.

The mackerel bite started slowly that morning on an outgoing tide fueled by 30-mph east-northeast winds. But as the chum slick spread behind the B n’ M and the current sped up, the long silver missiles with yellow dots began to chomp in earnest.

Using bare 1/4-ounce to 3/8-ounce jigs, with no need to tip them with shrimp, the party experienced multiple hook-ups that forced them to shuffle around each other and untangle lines — a good problem to have. Stanczyk said the 74-degree water temperature ensured the fish would be aggressive.

“In cold water, they get lethargic,” he said. “When it’s like this, they’ll bite a plain jig.”

Color no factor

Color didn’t seem to matter; the brighter and more garish the jig, the more intense the mack attack.

But one thing Stanczyk and Peck were careful about was tying a short length of No. 3 wire onto the fishing lines with an Albright knot instead of a swivel. Swivels — even small ones — create bubbles when being retrieved, and mackerel will bite them off.

Peck said anglers in his home fishing grounds of Oregon Inlet would kill for mackerel fishing like the party experienced in Florida Bay that day.

Times have changed

“There’s guys standing on a fishing pier all day praying to catch two fish like these,” he said.

It wasn’t always this way, Stanczyk told him. Before Florida adopted a statewide ban on gill and entangling nets in the mid 1990s, “you couldn’t catch a mackerel,” Stanczyk said. “Now, it’s a wonderful thing to see.”

And to eat.