Indian mackerel
Fish · Last reviewed 2026-08-25
One of the most important food fishes of the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia — a filter-feeding mackerel that swims with its mouth open.
Catching Indian mackerel
Everything here on fishing for it. Each entry opens the page behind it.
- Ground
*Rastrelliger kanagurta* is a small scombrid of enormous consequence. It is among the principal food fishes of the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia, landed in vast quantities from Durban to Samoa, and known by a different name in almost every fishery that takes it — bangda in India, kembung in Indonesia and Malaysia, and a dozen more.
It looks like a mackerel and feeds like a basking shark. Its gill rakers are long, numerous and finely branched, and adults swim through plankton with the mouth wide open and the opercula flared, straining what passes. That is a completely different apparatus from the pursuit predation of the *Scomber* mackerels, and it is the reason a lure is not the obvious way to catch one.
FishBase records a maximum of 36 cm and an age of four years, pelagic-neritic over a depth range of 20 to 90 m in water above about 17 °C. It has entered the eastern Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, which puts it among the better-established Lessepsian migrants.
For an angler it is caught on sabiki traces and small baited hooks from harbour walls, jetties and boats throughout its range, and it is used as bait for almost everything larger. Its short four-year life and high turnover are what allow a fishery of that scale to exist at all.
How it is caught
Identification
No photograph of Indian 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
- Rastrelliger kanagurta
- Family
- Scombridae
- Water
- Saltwater
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Regions
- South Asia, South-East Asia, Indo-Pacific, East & Southern Africa, East Asia, Australia, Mediterranean
- A deeper, more compressed body than the Scomber mackerels, with a noticeably larger head for its length.
- Long, numerous, finely branched gill rakers visible when the gill cover is lifted — the filter-feeding apparatus, and the surest character.
- A dark spot at the lower edge of the pectoral fin base, and narrow dark longitudinal bands along the upper flank.
- The typical scombrid finlets between the second dorsal and the tail.
- FishBase records a maximum of 36 cm and an age of 4 years.
Size
- Typical
- 100–250 g (3.5–9 oz)
- Large
- 300–450 g (11 oz–1 lb)
Exceptional: FishBase records a maximum of 36 cm and an age of 4 years
Lifecycle and reproduction
Pelagic-neritic and oceanodromous over a depth range of 20 to 90 m in water above about 17 °C, shoaling in very large numbers. Medium resilience and a short life of about four years — which is what allows a fishery of this scale to be sustained at all.
Not detailed on the FishBase record beyond the age data. The four-year maximum age on a species landed in the quantities this one is remains the most important number about it: a short-lived, fast-turnover fish responds to fishing pressure within a season or two rather than a decade.
Feeding and senses
Adults filter-feed on plankton, swimming with the mouth open and the gill covers flared so that long branched gill rakers strain the water. Juveniles take larger zooplankton more selectively. That apparatus is why baited traces and sabikis catch it and why lures largely do not.
Shoaling and filter-feeding rather than hunting individual prey, so it responds to water and to the shoal rather than to a target. Where it is caught on hooks at all, it is on small baited hooks fished in numbers through a feeding shoal.
Through the year
Moves with monsoon-driven productivity across much of its range, and the fisheries for it are strongly seasonal in a way tied to plankton blooms rather than to spawning migration alone.
Distribution
Indo-West Pacific: Durban, South Africa, Red Sea and East Africa to Indonesia, north to the Ryukyu Islands and China, south to Australia, Melanesia, Samoa and Tokelau. Entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal
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
One of the most heavily landed food fishes of the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia, and a routine recreational capture on sabiki traces and small baited hooks from harbour walls, jetties and boats throughout its range. It is also the standing live and dead bait for almost everything larger in those fisheries, which is a significant part of why it is fished for at all.
Handling and returning
It bleeds and spoils extremely quickly in tropical heat, which is the real handling issue rather than injury. Kill and cool anything kept immediately. No spines or teeth of consequence.
Where to go next
Similar and related fish
Where it lives
More fish
Not related to this page — just the rest of the section. There is little else joined to this subject yet, and a short page should still lead somewhere.
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 Rastrelliger kanagurta.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 Rastrelliger kanagurta, assessed 01 March 2022.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Identification, distribution, habitat and fishery description from the FAO species identification guides for fishery purposes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The widely restated practitioner account of how this species is fished — tackle, method and the ground it is taken over.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Why the 3 connections on this page are here, and the sources
Similar and related fish
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Atlantic chub mackerel
Rastrelliger kanagurta filter-feeds on plankton through long branched gill rakers, swimming with the mouth open; Scomber colias is a pursuit predator on small fish and crustaceans. The gill rakers are the character that separates them and they are visible only when the gill cover is lifted, which is why the two are so readily confused on a slab.
- 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
What experienced anglers do — 1 connection
Widely and independently recommended by experienced anglers and specialist sources. This is real angling knowledge, not proof: controlled evidence for it is limited, and FishingHQ records it as convention rather than as a demonstrated effect.
Feathering and multi-lure traces
Taken on sabiki traces and small baited hooks from harbour walls, jetties and boats throughout the Indo-West Pacific. It filter-feeds on plankton through long branched gill rakers rather than hunting individual prey, which is precisely why a string of small baited hooks through a feeding shoal works where a lure does not.
- FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Identification, distribution, habitat and fishery description from the FAO species identification guides for fishery purposes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The widely restated practitioner account of how this species is fished.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
Where it lives
Backed by research — 1 connection
Supported by peer-reviewed research or fisheries science. The sources are listed and can be checked.
Open ocean
Pelagic-neritic and oceanodromous over a depth range of 20 to 90 m in water above about 17 °C, from East Africa to Samoa and into the eastern Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
- 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 Rastrelliger kanagurta.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy.