Despite the great weather we’ve experienced this year I seem to have neglected my mullet fishing, which is a real shame as I believe them to be the one most rewarding of fish available to anglers in the UK. They certainly are challenging in terms of even getting a take and pound for pound they fight harder than any other species I’ve come across. To this day, I wonder about the fish that that smashed a 9lb tippet when I had to put the brakes on, as it headed to the foot bridge pilings at Greenodd. None of the salmon, carp or barbell I’ve hooked showed the sheer burst of speed and weight that fish did.
Anyway back to this year and time was running out, it’s late August and soon the mullet will be moving offshore again for the winter and I set out to the bay to see if I could at least put one on the board so I could put all my efforts to rescuing my salmon season, there’s a theme appearing here isn’t there?
Speed machine – Look at the tail on that
I hit the estuary about 2 hours before the high tide mark and a hour before the flood tide hits the river mouth. In view of my need to get a fish I went with “chumming” broken bread while the river flow was still taking water out into the bay so any mullet coming up with the tide would be coming across pieces well before they got to my mark. On the”fly” front I fished a clipped white deer hair bread crust imitation with a spun rabbit fur bread flake imitation under it NZ style. Not exactly purist but by my definition fly fishing. Some smaller dinks were showing to the chum prior to the flood tide but as the flood pushed I saw the tell tale shoulders breaching and splashing of better fish. A good number were taking the odd bit of chum and one cast resulted in a fantastic 6lbish fish taking the crust fly, once the mandatory 15 minute fight was completed and a quick photo taken the other fish in the pod had moved up with the tide and were now spread in ones or twos up and down the river. It’s very rewarding to hit a fish in that small window of time when they move past you and great to get one on the board this year.
