Shazikou Spanish Mackerel is on the market at the end of March and beginning of April.

At the end of March and early April, Qingdao’s local Spanish mackerel will be on the market one after another. This year’s Shazikou Spanish Mackerel Festival will be officially opened at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 8, at Shazikou Leisure Plaza of Shazikou Sub-district Office in Laoshan District. , it is expected that about 400,000 kilograms of Spanish mackerel will be on the market throughout April. The Laoshan Aquatic Products Chamber of Commerce has officially registered the trademark of Shakou Spanish mackerel, and at the same time, it will produce security codes and install "ID cards" on Spanish mackerel weighing more than 4 kilograms.

Mackerel, also known as Spanish mackerel, is a vertebrate, a general name for a genus of fish in the class Fish, family Scombridae, and is called blue-spotted mackerel. It has a long body and flat sides, about 1 meter long, and a silver body. Gray with dark horizontal stripes or spots, wavy lateral lines, snout tip with large oblique fissures, flat and sharp teeth, one row each on the upper and lower jaws, two dorsal fins with small or vestigial scales, the second dorsal fin and the rear of the anal fin each have 7~ 9 small fins.

Distribution and habits of Spanish mackerel:

Mackerel is a medium-sized marine economic fish. It often travels in groups for long-distance reproductive migration. It is ferocious in nature and swims quickly and quickly. It often hunts small animals in groups. Fish and shrimp are distributed along the coast of my country. The main fishing grounds of Spanish mackerel are in the sea off Zhoushan and Lianyungang and the southern coast of Shandong. The spring floods are from April to June, and the autumn floods are from July to October. The peak fishing season is from May to June. Methods include drift nets, wheel mid-level trawls and hook fishing.

In the 1950s and 1960s when resources were plentiful, the Bohai Bay from May to June was a good season for catching Spanish mackerel. The sun touched the mountains and the nets were flowing down, and the net buoys stretched for more than ten miles. There are often three to four thousand fish, weighing three to four kilograms, and the harvest is gratifying. The Spanish mackerel is fierce and often swims in the shallow water on the shore in pursuit of food from June to mid-October every year.

With its streamlined shape, extremely high swimming speed, and sharp teeth, it looks like a cheetah chasing its prey. The frightened small fishes flee in all directions, and often rush to the shore reefs in a panic without choosing their own path. The spectacular scene of a Spanish mackerel flying to catch prey is a surprise, and fishermen enjoy it endlessly. They "throw the mackerel" on the rocks and the side of the ship in the hope of getting hooked. The mackerel is large in size and can eat the hook quickly, making fishing very exciting. It has become a great pleasure for anglers.