Catching Poddy Mullet

[Katoe]

Gday Legends

Have been trying to catch some Poddy Mullet for bait, bought the reel it in trap have burlied them up and have them feeding. They hover over the trap but none go in any tips for a rookie Poddy trapper?

Tried bread and breadcrumbs with the same result. 
 

Areas tried Oatley Boat ramp and Donnelly Park. 
 

Cheers 
Katoe. 

[Green Hornet]

How deep are you setting it? Ideally you only want about 70-100mm of water over the entry hole/holes.

[Katoe]

Setting it a bit deep then. Only thing is the bigger Poddys don’t seem to come in that shallow or maybe I need to find somewhere quieter so they aren’t disturbed often. 

[noelm]

Don't burley, it attracts birds, water needs to only be shallow (usually) use bread, not crumbs, look for a fairly big sand flat, or a small channel if it's low tide, bigger Mullet are not as good for bait as smaller ones (in my opinion) trapping poddies is pretty simple once you get the basics right.

[Green Hornet]

If I want bigger poddies, say 6-8 inch for jew baits, I prefer to get them with a line under a float. 
Another trick for your style of trap with a hole in the top, is to make a hole in a whole slice of bread roughly the same size and carefully position it directly under the trap’s hole. The poddies will initially start picking at the bread from outside the trap and as numbers grow, they’ll force their mates inside.

[Koalaboi]

In my experience the only traps worth using are the ones you buy like this:

I tie a length of builders string to the eye fitting at the top of the trap and keep about 6 or 7 metres of string on a small plastic hand reel. The string can twist with use  so just be wary of that. Having the string attached is good if you don't want to wade into the water, and up here in Tuggerah Lakes, into thick mud.

I bait the trap with white bread and a handful of breadcrumbs. I also put a couple of pieces of polystyrene foam in the trap so that it floats just below the surface.

Throw it out into the shallows (be sure to have the handline spool under foot) where you see poddies swimming around. Leave it for 15 minutes and bring it in, Transfer your poddies to  your bait bucket. Re-bait the trap and send it out again until you have enough for fishing. The limit is 20 and the fisheries inspectors have been checking poddy buckets on the Lake up here. 

I keep the poddies in the water I catch them in and, if keeping them overnight, get a decent sized bucket of water and use a 240volt aerator from the aquarium shop.

I have set the cylindrical traps up alongside the plastic boxes with a hole in the top and the cylindrical traps get plenty and the others mostly none at all. Sometimes the boxes work a treat but they are very inconsistent compared to the cylindrical traps. 

These traps need careful handling as they are brittle and break easily if you try to force them open. The style pictured above is less of an issue but the other style, with plastic tabs to secure the ends, has small plastic knobs which break when you try to release the tabs if you are not careful. I have circled the bits that break in the picture below:

I find that poddies are easier to get when the sun is on the water and the surface calm or only lightly ruffled by a breeze.

Every now and again, you wake up and find some of your poddies have died overnight. This happened to me recently and I have no idea what the problem was. I used them anyway and still caught plenty of flathead. I suspend them under a float in fairly fast flowing water so they kind of look like they're swimming I think. Just the same, the live ones were better.

Good luck!

KB

Edited March 10, 2023 by Koalaboi

[AlbertW]

On 3/4/2023 at 2:43 PM, Katoe said:

Gday Legends

Have been trying to catch some Poddy Mullet for bait, bought the reel it in trap have burlied them up and have them feeding. They hover over the trap but none go in any tips for a rookie Poddy trapper?

Tried bread and breadcrumbs with the same result. 
 

Areas tried Oatley Boat ramp and Donnelly Park. 
 

Cheers 
Katoe. 

honestly if the trap doesn't work you can try small balls of bread on an unweighted panfish hook