Indian Mackerel

The mackerel Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier) is a pelagic shoaling fish widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific region and its fishery no where else is of such high magnitude as on our coasts. Being a much esteemed table-fish which is greatly in demand, its fishery is an important source of livelihood to those engaged in fishing and dependent industries. The bulk of the catches is obtained on the west coast between Cape Comorin and Ratnagiri. The landings of mackerel on the east coast in general are low, but in some parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Orissa they are often heavy. In the past two decades the annual all-India mackerel landings had exceeded one lakh metric tons during 1951, 1958 and 1960; in the leanest of the years i.e. in 1956 the catch was only a little over 16 thousand metric tons; the annual mackerel catch in the total marine fish landings varied from 2.29% to 19.65% in the said period. Such wide fluctuations, noticed in the earlier year also, drew the attention of the fishery workers since the beginning of this century