Quote Originally Posted by DockShootinJack View Post
Sounds like a great trip to the springs. Fresh mullet is rather tasty as I remember from childhood
White flaky meat. Can be fried, blackened, grilled, baked or smoked. Very popular in smoked fish dips as well. When I was surf fishing they were a sign of good things to come, as every thing that swims the sea was eating them. We would see schools of them swimming past for weeks and weeks. Every Fall there is a large migration headed South. The great mullet run. Castnets would gather them for bait. I caught sharks, redfish, bluefish, flounder, tarpon, whiting, black drum, etc.

They eat vegetative matter and produce protein. Much like rabbits do. They seem to exist in order to produce food for others. The really large critters liked to gorge on the fingerlings. I reckoned it was because they could cram more meat into their guts by sliding those in vs trying to accommodate a few large mullet.

Some folks fish for them with rod and reel. They sit on the banks of the river and pitch canned corn to chum up the area. Then corn on a small hook under a bobber. The vast majority that get caught, get caught in nets. Commercial fishing targets the larger ones, I call horsehead mullet. Lots more are caught using castnets as there is no good reason to use shrimp for bait during the run.

Mullet swimming down the beach are being attacked by fish and birds as they go, so are skittish and shy. The trick to netting them is to wade out and stand perfectly still. This means they will swim in closer. In range of a castnet. The toss should be low to the water so they can’t see it too early and escape.

Most think they need a huge net, but a huge net isn’t the best choice. For a big net to work, you have to be right up on them. Can’t get any distance that way. I used a four foot net which I could throw 75 feet. Now that got it done. One day there was a crowd of fishermen standing along the shore of a canal, watching a school of fingerlings swimming around just out of range. I think twenty of them watching, waiting to get some bait. I walked over to the edge, reached in my bucket for my small net, and pitched it about fifty feet and scored a net full first throw. Put some in my bucket and released the others and walked away like a champ. Years later I met someone who was one of the guys standing there, and he wanted me to know how mad all them guys were. He bought himself a smaller net and asked me to show him how to toss it like that. Most had a hard time believing a cast net would travel that far, but it will.

Jack I could have reigned down death from above there at the springs. Easy tosses at big fish, but I think it would be frowned upon by the rangers. However, just outside of the roped off entrance to the springs, well that is another matter. That water is still clear, all be it much warmer, and I could probably do some tosses there. I keep a net in my boat for shiners and shad. We plan to go back and anchor and hang out and I will be watching for mullet.