Mullet oh those wiley buggers!

[madagascar]

Like many of you here I have been an angler for many many years. I have fished for a wide variety of fish in my time but never the mullet.

Living here in cornwall I am lucky (sometimes!) with the fishing that is on offer. Maybe it is because of this that I have never actually fished for mullet. I see them everywhere across the harbours and bays that surround the county, many of them good fish. I know they can be notoriously hard to catch and though a hard fighting fish, they are also one of the less rugged species, almost delicate and should be treated accordingly.

The other day I was in Padstow on my day off. I plonked myself on the harbour wall with a sarnie and looked out across the harbour. Within mins of my arrival a large shoal of mullet swam in front of where I was sitting. The fish were from a few ounces to about 4lb. I lobbed a few pieces of my sarnie in amongst them and they attacked it with piranah like savagery. No hesitation, no shying away...strange.

I continued to hurl bits of bread in but the seagulls soon cottoned on and the fish went without. But the thought of the relative boldness of these fish stuck in my mind. Two days later I returned.

Setup was simple to say the least. 12 ft waggler coarse rod, 6lb line, size 10 hook and a self cocking crystal waggler. Bait? Bread and lots of it. I had prepared a small tub of mashed bread and mashed fish guts which went in 15 mins prior to my first cast. By the time I was ready the fish were there in good numbers. There were tons of smaller fish but a handful of clonkers and the hair on the back of my neck was on end. 'This is gonna be easy,' I thought. That was mistake number one. Talk about frustrating, I tried everything.

I varied the depth from surface to 4ft down. I changed hook sizes, the size of the bait, tried slow retrieve, rise and fall, static...everything. The problem was not getting the fish to be interested. The problem was getting them to take the hook down. Time and time again i could see fish upon fish swimming around with the bread 'balanced' on its nose. I thought maybe the hook was too big so I even went down to a size 16 but still the same thing. Even the bigger fish did the same. One of around the 4lb mark seemed to happily flash around with my bait stuck to the front of it, almost as though its mouth was tightly shut but just open enough to suck at and sift the bread particles down its throat. I got quite ridiculous. Fresh bait would go on and the water would almost boil. I could see dozens of fish going for the bread as soon as it hit the water. I would have expected behaviour of this kind to throw any caution the fish had to the wind, resulting in confident, mouth wide open kind of bites...BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! THOSE BLOODY BUGGERS HAD ME SWEARING ALL AFTERNOON!!!!

I caught nothing (apart from some filthy looks from holiday makers because of my colourful tongue)

I am a seasoned angler. Sea catches from the shore and from kayak include conger to 16lb, bass 7lb, pollack 6lb, wrasse 6lb, flounder 3lb amongst others. Freshwater catches include pike 27lb, carp 23lb, tench 4lb, roach 2lb, perch 3lb amongst others. Been fishing for 30 years and I am buggered if I know what I should have been doing to catch those fish.

So I cry to you guys for help!

The one good thing I have gotten from all this, is the excitement, the anticipation and the hunger to go back as many time as it takes to start catching good mullet on a regular basis. Any constructive ideas would be greatly received as would a jumbo tub of valium and maybe a vat of Port&Brandy......

Best regards to you all..Great site...great people. Cheers

[Norm B]

Like many of you here I have been an angler for many many years. I have fished for a wide variety of fish in my time but never the mullet.

Living here in cornwall I am lucky (sometimes!) with the fishing that is on offer. Maybe it is because of this that I have never actually fished for mullet. I see them everywhere across the harbours and bays that surround the county, many of them good fish. I know they can be notoriously hard to catch and though a hard fighting fish, they are also one of the less rugged species, almost delicate and should be treated accordingly.

The other day I was in Padstow on my day off. I plonked myself on the harbour wall with a sarnie and looked out across the harbour. Within mins of my arrival a large shoal of mullet swam in front of where I was sitting. The fish were from a few ounces to about 4lb. I lobbed a few pieces of my sarnie in amongst them and they attacked it with piranah like savagery. No hesitation, no shying away...strange.

I continued to hurl bits of bread in but the seagulls soon cottoned on and the fish went without. But the thought of the relative boldness of these fish stuck in my mind. Two days later I returned.

Setup was simple to say the least. 12 ft waggler coarse rod, 6lb line, size 10 hook and a self cocking crystal waggler. Bait? Bread and lots of it. I had prepared a small tub of mashed bread and mashed fish guts which went in 15 mins prior to my first cast. By the time I was ready the fish were there in good numbers. There were tons of smaller fish but a handful of clonkers and the hair on the back of my neck was on end. 'This is gonna be easy,' I thought. That was mistake number one. Talk about frustrating, I tried everything.

I varied the depth from surface to 4ft down. I changed hook sizes, the size of the bait, tried slow retrieve, rise and fall, static...everything. The problem was not getting the fish to be interested. The problem was getting them to take the hook down. Time and time again i could see fish upon fish swimming around with the bread 'balanced' on its nose. I thought maybe the hook was too big so I even went down to a size 16 but still the same thing. Even the bigger fish did the same. One of around the 4lb mark seemed to happily flash around with my bait stuck to the front of it, almost as though its mouth was tightly shut but just open enough to suck at and sift the bread particles down its throat. I got quite ridiculous. Fresh bait would go on and the water would almost boil. I could see dozens of fish going for the bread as soon as it hit the water. I would have expected behaviour of this kind to throw any caution the fish had to the wind, resulting in confident, mouth wide open kind of bites...BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! THOSE BLOODY BUGGERS HAD ME SWEARING ALL AFTERNOON!!!!

I caught nothing (apart from some filthy looks from holiday makers because of my colourful tongue)

I am a seasoned angler. Sea catches from the shore and from kayak include conger to 16lb, bass 7lb, pollack 6lb, wrasse 6lb, flounder 3lb amongst others. Freshwater catches include pike 27lb, carp 23lb, tench 4lb, roach 2lb, perch 3lb amongst others. Been fishing for 30 years and I am buggered if I know what I should have been doing to catch those fish.

So I cry to you guys for help!

The one good thing I have gotten from all this, is the excitement, the anticipation and the hunger to go back as many time as it takes to start catching good mullet on a regular basis. Any constructive ideas would be greatly received as would a jumbo tub of valium and maybe a vat of Port&Brandy......

Best regards to you all..Great site...great people. Cheers

Try a little floating ground bait then a size 8 or 10 hook, Kamasan B983 is my favourite, to 6lb fluoro, vanish or wychwood my favourite, pinch on a largish piece of bread, hiding the hook inside but leave one end of the bread 'fluffy', just pinch it near the eye of the hook and drop it amongst the ground bait when the fish are actively feeding. It usually works for me. I'm probably going to give it a couple of hours today now you've got me in the mood.

[madagascar]

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QUOTE(Norm B @ May 13 2006, 11:05 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try a little floating ground bait then a size 8 or 10 hook, Kamasan B983 is my favourite, to 6lb fluoro, vanish or wychwood my favourite, pinch on a largish piece of bread, hiding the hook inside but leave one end of the bread 'fluffy', just pinch it near the eye of the hook and drop it amongst the ground bait when the fish are actively feeding. It usually works for me. I'm probably going to give it a couple of hours today now you've got me in the mood.

 

Thats just how I usually present my breadflake. Same when I fish for chub.I tried the 'fluffy' approach and also the moulded ball approach. So you can see why I am so frustrated! I know the mouth has capacity for the hook, it's just they almost seem to be playing with it.

Thanks for such a swift reply though...and good luck with the mulet

[Leon Roskilly]

Welcome to the world of mullet-fishing

 

Have a look at:

 

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/Sea-Fishing-Ar...et_faq_one.html

 

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/Sea-Fishing-Ar...et_faq_two.html

 

 

They can be caught - honest!

 

 

 

 

But 'frustration' is a word well-known to all who follow the path of the 'Grey Ghost'.

 

Get used to it!

 

It's worth it

 

 

I've also experienced many times mullet happily hoovering up free- offerings, pecking confidently at a bread-filled metal cage feeder - in fact I had one fish take the entire feeder into it's mouth and play tug-o-war with it until I lifted it's head abover the surface and saw it let go!

 

And yet ignore a piece of bread with a tiny white painted hook cunningly hidden inside, attached to the smallest possible diameter fluorocarbon.

 

Or worse still, pushing the bread, butting the bread, towing the bread about held in the tipof it's lips as though it was purposefully torment me!

Edited May 13, 2006 by Leon Roskilly

[Norm B]

--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Norm B @ May 13 2006, 11:05 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->

Try a little floating ground bait then a size 8 or 10 hook, Kamasan B983 is my favourite, to 6lb fluoro, vanish or wychwood my favourite, pinch on a largish piece of bread, hiding the hook inside but leave one end of the bread 'fluffy', just pinch it near the eye of the hook and drop it amongst the ground bait when the fish are actively feeding. It usually works for me. I'm probably going to give it a couple of hours today now you've got me in the mood.

Thats just how I usually present my breadflake. Same when I fish for chub.I tried the 'fluffy' approach and also the moulded ball approach. So you can see why I am so frustrated! I know the mouth has capacity for the hook, it's just they almost seem to be playing with it.

Thanks for such a swift reply though...and good luck with the mulet

Not going for the mullet today now, just collected bait, cup final 3pm, club shore match 7pm-midnight, Poole bream comp 0730 tomorrow and in between got to finish servicing a mates reel and sort my gear for both comps, where does the weekend go?

[stavey]

Hi madagascar a couple of tips for you.

 

first. try a thin breaking strain hooklength of braid instead of nylon to tie to your hook.

 

second. coax your mullet by pre-baiting (and continue to grounbait) to an area that has a moderate tidal flow for most of the times, as the fish will have little time to inspect the hookbait and it has to make a snap decision whether to grab it before it escapes or another mullet grabs it, believe me on many occasions i have proved this to friends within shouting distance that have blanked and i have caught all day with hookholds positioned in the back of the mouth let alone in their scissors etc, they certainly dont mess about in these situations, now go and catch those not so shy mullet but this time in the right places, cheers...........

[Snatcher]

Just a thought! try white tippex on the hook and maybe try dawn or dusk Nice report

[phil dean]

give up now...........if you go down this road you may never escape!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you have been warned.

[madagascar]

So many replies!

Thanks to you all. It's too late i'm afraid....the mullet bug has me in its grasp. I would like to thank all of you who have taken time to reply.

Leon....BLOODY HELL MATE!!!! nice fish and your reply made me grin.

Stavey...will give that a go next. But I love the simplicity of the harbour and will continue to try here also until i get results.

Snatcher...will try that also, I will try anything once. As you know yourself it is sometimes the weirdest things that catch fish

Phil.....too late my friend...too .late, my soul is doomed to the ghost.

 

I'm back to work tomorrow but will be back on the harbour at the weekend.....I'll keep you guys posted..

Bloody hell Leon...Bloody hell....thats a hell of a mullet mate.

Also thanks Norm for the swift suggestion of help. You guys are great...

[WeymouthSean]

Hi There I have just come back from a weeks holiday in cornwall. I fished at a place called mylor near Truo and hardly saw a fish so if I had knew you were there I would have definately taken the trip up to Padstow to help you catch some of these grey beauties!

 

I have just returned to Weymouth and have had two mullet tonight. I feel you probably need to use a light controller float and surface fish like you do for carp. Throw the minimum about of bread in to avoid the attension of the gulls and always catipult out very small pieces of bread that aren't some easierly seen by these annoyoing birds. A trick I have found is to clap your hands just as the gulls start to swoop down this normally helps put them off. Squeese a nice piece of bread the size of an egg on a size 12 so that your hook is at the very top of the bread

flake. Always hit the fish when the controller starts moving never before! and you should nail one.