In this article, Mike shares his tips and tactics on how to increase your catch rate when Salt Water Fly Fishing the most wily of creatures, the Mullet.
Packed with information and guidance on preferable SWFF gear, times, locations and techniques, its a great post for those starting out in the world of SWFFing and for experiences SWFFers alike.
Well, I have already given the basics on fly fishing for mullet though I have to admit that through this year I have been addicated to fly fishing for mullet.
Now, many articles on the net say that the best rod weights are 6-7wt fly rods - I must say these are great if you are going to dispatch all fish as, in my opinion, they take longer to land and they are exhausted when returned and have a high mortality rate in my experience. From this, I changed up to 8wt outfits and changed tackle somewhat.
Recently, I have been using a pair of rods a snowbee deep blue 8wt and a greys G-Tec. I have teamed these with 3 spools on each. These contain the following lines:-
Full rio outbound floater
Full set of rio max 2 shooting heads
1 floating shooting line
1intermediate shooting line
The reason I have chosen this is because I then have the option to fish surface through to 70ft of water with relative ease (dependant on the head that i fit to fish with), covering the following species on 1 rod: Trout, salmon, steel head pike, bass, pollock, mackerel, garfish, pouting, whiting, carp, perch, zander and mullet. Basically, anything that will hit fry or natural moving food items will take a fly dependant on the pattern choice.
But back to mullet fishing. It started early in the mullet season, I was watching a couple of 7lb fish cruising in low water and cast freelined bread to them nothing, controller floats, stick floats nothing. I then fitted a small red tag size 16 fly wet version and started a slow and i mean very slow retieve. BANG, fish on, christ it started a run took the shooting head 30ft long, the running line 50 metres long and started on the backing line. It wasnt stopping. Finally, after 15 minutes, I had it under control and started the retrieve to bring to hand 25 minutes and it was on the net. If I had used a lighted rod i feel sure that this would have snapped off with ease. Used a 15lb co-polymer leader with a 12lb flurocarbon tippet tied on to then end here. This was in stonehouse creek. Thren on to the pontoon i sat watching fish moving fast, so i cast out farther than usual alloed a bottom fly to sing through the layers with a tungsten head and fitted a booby fly to the top as a strike indicator. Sat haveing a smoke and 'whoosh' the top fly disapeared under the water strike like my life depended on it and another fish started only 4lb this time. though i bloody god account of itself all the same.
Right i have to check something so wait to low water and drive to noss mayo, walk up the estuary on foot and hit the crossing bridge that is full submerged at high water knelt down in the shallow water and looked under the bridge and it was packed solid with sand shrimp fresh water shrimp in other words. So, I went back to the car and tied up a small size 22 shrimp and waited for the tie to flood. Admittedly, i was sat in the pub. Then, in 10 inches of water, I repeated what I had used earlier. 8 fish in total in less than 2 hours! The biggest went to 5lb mark. That's it, i have finally cracked the elusive mullet fly code. Rod weight soft tipped 8wt, floating shooting head or full floater reel with a good drag system, lots of backing line 15ln co-polymer 10-12lb flurocarbon, a selection of very small shrimp pattern flies and red tags as well as large bushy white top surface flies.
All of this was done with out pre baiting that should the fly purists bloody flowing sufficiently. I have aksed a couple of people around the country to try this method and they are having good results also. So go on get a cheap 8wt fly kit and have a go yourself. Yu will never turn back again .
Packed with information and guidance on preferable SWFF gear, times, locations and techniques, its a great post for those starting out in the world of SWFFing and for experiences SWFFers alike.
Well, I have already given the basics on fly fishing for mullet though I have to admit that through this year I have been addicated to fly fishing for mullet.
Now, many articles on the net say that the best rod weights are 6-7wt fly rods - I must say these are great if you are going to dispatch all fish as, in my opinion, they take longer to land and they are exhausted when returned and have a high mortality rate in my experience. From this, I changed up to 8wt outfits and changed tackle somewhat.
Recently, I have been using a pair of rods a snowbee deep blue 8wt and a greys G-Tec. I have teamed these with 3 spools on each. These contain the following lines:-
Full rio outbound floater
Full set of rio max 2 shooting heads
1 floating shooting line
1intermediate shooting line
The reason I have chosen this is because I then have the option to fish surface through to 70ft of water with relative ease (dependant on the head that i fit to fish with), covering the following species on 1 rod: Trout, salmon, steel head pike, bass, pollock, mackerel, garfish, pouting, whiting, carp, perch, zander and mullet. Basically, anything that will hit fry or natural moving food items will take a fly dependant on the pattern choice.
But back to mullet fishing. It started early in the mullet season, I was watching a couple of 7lb fish cruising in low water and cast freelined bread to them nothing, controller floats, stick floats nothing. I then fitted a small red tag size 16 fly wet version and started a slow and i mean very slow retieve. BANG, fish on, christ it started a run took the shooting head 30ft long, the running line 50 metres long and started on the backing line. It wasnt stopping. Finally, after 15 minutes, I had it under control and started the retrieve to bring to hand 25 minutes and it was on the net. If I had used a lighted rod i feel sure that this would have snapped off with ease. Used a 15lb co-polymer leader with a 12lb flurocarbon tippet tied on to then end here. This was in stonehouse creek. Thren on to the pontoon i sat watching fish moving fast, so i cast out farther than usual alloed a bottom fly to sing through the layers with a tungsten head and fitted a booby fly to the top as a strike indicator. Sat haveing a smoke and 'whoosh' the top fly disapeared under the water strike like my life depended on it and another fish started only 4lb this time. though i bloody god account of itself all the same.
Right i have to check something so wait to low water and drive to noss mayo, walk up the estuary on foot and hit the crossing bridge that is full submerged at high water knelt down in the shallow water and looked under the bridge and it was packed solid with sand shrimp fresh water shrimp in other words. So, I went back to the car and tied up a small size 22 shrimp and waited for the tie to flood. Admittedly, i was sat in the pub. Then, in 10 inches of water, I repeated what I had used earlier. 8 fish in total in less than 2 hours! The biggest went to 5lb mark. That's it, i have finally cracked the elusive mullet fly code. Rod weight soft tipped 8wt, floating shooting head or full floater reel with a good drag system, lots of backing line 15ln co-polymer 10-12lb flurocarbon, a selection of very small shrimp pattern flies and red tags as well as large bushy white top surface flies.
All of this was done with out pre baiting that should the fly purists bloody flowing sufficiently. I have aksed a couple of people around the country to try this method and they are having good results also. So go on get a cheap 8wt fly kit and have a go yourself. Yu will never turn back again .
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