Blue jack mackerel
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
The horse mackerel of the Atlantic islands — and the fish `chicharro` means in the Azores, where the same word means a different species in the Canaries.
Safety: injury while handling fish — minor injury.
Catching Blue jack mackerel
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- When
- Mar — months recorded at the places that document it, not a season for the whole range.
- Where
- 1 place FishingHQ documents — strongest claim anywhere: recorded here · From the shore
There are two horse mackerel a shore angler meets in the eastern Atlantic and most English-language writing knows only one of them.
*Trachurus picturatus* is the blue jack mackerel: a slim, silvery scad with the armoured lateral line the genus is built around, running from the southern Bay of Biscay to southern Morocco and taking in the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, Tristan da Cunha and Gough. FishBase records it to 60 cm and an age of eighteen years.
The name is the interesting part, and it is a trap. The Azores annotated checklist gives it `chicharro` and `chicharro do alto`. The Canary fisheries directorate's size table gives `chicharro` to *Trachurus trachurus*, the Atlantic horse mackerel. Two regional authorities, one word, two different fish — so a Portuguese-language Azorean report and a Spanish-language Canarian one using the same word are not describing the same animal.
For an angler it behaves as horse mackerel do: it shoals, it comes into harbours and along walls in numbers, it takes small metal, feathers, jigs and strips of fish, and it feeds hardest at first and last light. Its FishBase depth band of 170 to 370 m describes the offshore adult population rather than the fish taken from a mole, and both are real — which is what `chicharro do alto`, the offshore chicharro, is distinguishing.
It is caught for the table and used for bait, and on an island where a shoal arriving under the lights is a local event it is often both in the same session.
How it is caught
Where Blue jack mackerel is documented
Places where public sources describe this species as fished, with how it is fished and how strongly the evidence supports it. This is not a range map and it is not a recommendation — it is what has been written down about a fishery rather than a record of any individual catch, and being listed is never permission to fish.
The Azores
1 documented place
Vila Franca do Campo, São Miguel
Harbour wall
Recorded here
From the shore
Reported Mar
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
Identification
No photograph of Blue jack mackerel has passed identity review yet, so none is shown. FishingHQ publishes a species photograph only once somebody has confirmed the animal in it against the species record’s own diagnostic features.
- Scientific name
- Trachurus picturatus
- Family
- Carangidae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- Western Europe, Mediterranean, North Africa, West Africa
- The armoured lateral line of a scad: a row of hard bony scutes running along the rear half of the flank and around the tail wrist.
- Slimmer and more silvery-blue than the Atlantic horse mackerel, with a slightly smaller eye in proportion to the head.
- A dark blotch on the rear edge of the gill cover, as the genus generally has.
- Two dorsal fins, the second long and low, and a deeply forked tail on a narrow wrist.
- Range separates it in practice: this is the horse mackerel of the Atlantic islands, and Trachurus trachurus is the one of the northern European shelf.
Size
- Typical
- 150–400 g (5–14 oz)
- Large
- 600 g–1 kg (1.3–2.2 lb)
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 60 cm and an age of 18 years
Lifecycle and reproduction
Benthopelagic and oceanodromous, recorded by FishBase over a depth range of 170 to 370 m — which describes the offshore adult shoals rather than the fish taken from a harbour wall. Medium resilience and a maximum age of eighteen years. The Azorean distinction between `chicharro` and `chicharro do alto` is that same split in local language.
Not detailed on the FishBase record beyond the age data. An eighteen-year maximum age on a shoaling scad is longer than the fish's size suggests, and it is the fact worth carrying: heavily fished shoaling species with long individual lives are replaced more slowly than their abundance implies.
Feeding and senses
A shoaling pursuit feeder on small fish, crustaceans and zooplankton, driving bait against structure in the same way its northern relative does. It feeds competitively when a shoal is on the mark, which is why a string of small lures out-fishes a single bait.
Sight and speed in clear water, keyed to flash and movement, and markedly more active at first and last light and under harbour lights after dark. Retrieve speed matters more than lure pattern.
Through the year
Shoals move inshore and offshore through the year rather than on a fixed calendar, and an arrival under harbour lights can last days rather than months. In the Atlantic islands it is available in most months and predictable in none.
Distribution
Eastern Atlantic: southern Bay of Biscay to southern Morocco including Azores, Madeira , Canary Islands, Tristan de Cunha and Gough Islands. Also known from the western part of the Mediterranean Sea
This is a biological range — where the species occurs, not a prediction that you will catch one. To browse the fishing geography FishingHQ holds, start at fishing places.
Why anglers care
The horse mackerel of the Atlantic islands, taken from harbour walls, moles and rock on small metal jigs, feathers, sabiki traces and strips of fish, and offshore in quantity by boat. It is eaten and it is bait, frequently in the same session. Its wider significance is as a name: an Azorean source saying `chicharro` means this fish and a Canarian one means Trachurus trachurus, so the word alone settles nothing.
Handling and returning
The scutes along the rear of the lateral line are sharp enough to cut a hand drawn along the flank the wrong way, and the fish bleeds and spoils quickly in warmth. Grip across the body from the head end, unhook with pliers, and bleed and cool anything being kept at once.
Safety
Injury while handling fish — Minor injury
The bony scutes on the rear half of the lateral line are sharp and backward-facing, so a hand slid down the flank from tail to head is cut by the fish's own armour.
What reduces it: Hold across the body from the head end rather than sliding a hand along the flank, and unhook with pliers on a fish that is still lively.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
Sources and evidence
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Family, maximum size, depth range, environment, distribution and the IUCN assessment for Trachurus picturatus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature (Conservation authority)Relied on for: The Least Concern assessment for Trachurus picturatus, assessed 10 May 2013.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Marine fishes of the Azores: an annotated checklist and bibliography — Santos, Porteiro & Barreiros — Arquipélago, Life and Marine Sciences, Supplement 1, University of the Azores, 1997 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: That this species is recorded from the Azores, and the Portuguese and Azorean vernacular names the checklist gives it.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Species hunting adventures on São Miguel — a two-part March diary at named marks — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), 2022 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this species was taken on light tackle from a named São Miguel mark in March, and the rig and bait used.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Why the 5 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 2 connections
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Atlantic horse mackerel
Trachurus picturatus is the horse mackerel of the Atlantic islands and Trachurus trachurus is the one of the northern European shelf. The Azores annotated checklist gives `chicharro` and `chicharro do alto` to T. picturatus; the Canary fisheries directorate's size table gives `chicharro` to T. trachurus. The two are separated on eye proportion and build, and in practice on range.
- Marine fishes of the Azores: an annotated checklist and bibliography — Santos, Porteiro & Barreiros — Arquipélago, Life and Marine Sciences, Supplement 1, University of the Azores, 1997 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: Which species are recorded from the Azores, their Portuguese and Azorean vernacular names, and the published synonyms and misidentifications for each.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Japanese horse mackerel
Trachurus japonicus carries bony scutes along almost the whole lateral line and is a north-west Pacific fish; Trachurus picturatus carries them on the rear half and is an eastern Atlantic island fish. Both are called by a regional name — aji and chicharro — that a reader is likely to meet before the binomial.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: The morphology, size, depth range and distribution that separate these two species from one another.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How it is caught
Reported, not established — 1 connection
Reported, but without independent support. Recorded because it is in circulation, not because it has been shown to hold.
Feathering and multi-lure traces
Taken from an Azorean harbour on light tackle in March. Horse mackerel of both eastern Atlantic species are fished for with strings of small lures wherever shoals come within a shore cast, and the reason is the fish's own competitive shoal feeding rather than any property of the tackle.
- Species hunting adventures on São Miguel — a two-part March diary at named marks — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), 2022 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: The light-tackle methods, rigs, hooks and baits a species-hunting angler used on São Miguel in March, and the species each took.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Where it lives
Backed by research — 2 connections
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Harbours, piers and breakwaters
A benthopelagic oceanodromous scad of the eastern Atlantic islands. Its recorded band of 170 to 370 m is the offshore adult population; the Azorean distinction between `chicharro` and `chicharro do alto` is the same split in local language, and the inshore shoals are what a mole produces.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Trachurus picturatus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
Open ocean
Recorded over a depth range of 170 to 370 m from the southern Bay of Biscay to southern Morocco including the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, Tristan da Cunha and Gough Islands.
- FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Environment, depth range, habitat association and distribution for Trachurus picturatus.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.