Magic Mullet - Round 3

[Little_Flatty]

Hi all,

Some of you may recall that Jason (@FishingFables) had some great sessions at Narrabeen Lake recently, catching mullet on bread flies. His excellent reports can be read here: 

and here:

@DerekD and I both wanted in on the action, so a conversation was started in November and finally we got together last evening for a session on the Narrabeen flats. Arrived at 5pm, had a chat and rigged up, then we went out on the flats. Thankfully the water had warmed up a bit since then and we didn't need waders this time.

Jason got a good bread berley trail going and we started casting. Unfortunately we had strong winds to contend with, so getting the flies out there were a real test of our skills, particularly mine! What I hadn't factored in was that the chop would also make it difficult to see our floating 'deadly breadly' flies. Jason advised us that a slow strip of the fly will help with the line management and the fish would hook themselves as a result.

Naturally, Jason was the first to come tight on a little mullet and then a series of other mullet and bream, while Derek and myself stayed fishless. But after persisting a while, I came tight on my first ever fly-caught mullet, which snaffled my sinking fly:

(That's Derek and Jason in the background. Note Jason's orange wet bag hanging off his chest pack. That's filled with berley and within very easy reach, making it easy to maintain a steady berley trail. It's details like that which separate a gun angler from your average one.)

I soon worked out that whilst I was sitting in Jason's berley trail, that the wind was dispersing it faster than first thought, so I pulled out some of my own bread and berleyed up as well. The water swirled in front of me and I had a savage take and I struck, then...nothing...the line went slack! I stripped in my fly to see what happened but felt a fish, albeit a tiny one. We had a laugh as I unhooked and released my first fly caught herring:

Then shortly after that, I had a similar experience with my first fly caught butter fish. I had no idea that these guys were in the lake:

At this point, Derek was still not on the board. Those of you have fished with Derek before will know that the guy likes to talk, so it may have been that the conversation was distracting him from the fishing🤣. At this point, Jason got his phone out to get a sunset photo and right on cue, Derek comes tight on a little bream with the bread fly:

(That's Derek with the fish on, and me in the background). We laugh about the fact that Derek requires a camera on him for motivation 🤣

Unfortunately after that it was time to go, lest we have an unpleasant night time walk back to the cars, whilst getting attacked by mozzies and the like. I rigged up a Skagit shooting head (a really heavy and short line, used for spey/roll casting very long distances) for the boys to play with, and after a few casts each, we head back to the cars, then home.

Though the fish were small and the conditions tough, we were very happy with that session. I for one was happy to up my fly-caught species list from three (Luderick, Flathead, Trevally) to six (Mullet, Herring, Butterfish).

A big thanks to @FishingFables for showing us the ropes. We must do this again sometime, as well as chasing flatties on the same flats.

Thanks for reading!

Mike

[Yowie]

A nice outing, new species, and can eat a mullet or 2 if you want to. Mullet do go hard on a light line.

[R E G I C Y C L E]

Good job. It's surprising the variety of species that live in Narrabeen. I've even heard of a mangrove jack being caught there... although I do wonder if it was released in similar circumstances to the Parra barra...

[XD351]

Awesome ! I wonder if the same technique works on the freshwater mullet and herring in the Nepean? You could go up there and do the  four species thing - bass , mullet , herring and mud marlin.

[Pickles]

Way to go mate 👏👏

[faker]

Seems fly fishing solves issues in weedy areas

[jenno64]

Great read Little Flatty! I love reading about the fly caught fish you get!

[Little_Flatty]

2 hours ago, Yowie said:

A nice outing, new species, and can eat a mullet or 2 if you want to. Mullet do go hard on a light line.

Thanks Dave, I was ready to take a feed but there wasn't enough size in the mullet to be worth it.

2 hours ago, R E G I C Y C L E said:

Good job. It's surprising the variety of species that live in Narrabeen. I've even heard of a mangrove jack being caught there... although I do wonder if it was released in similar circumstances to the Parra barra...

Live barra are widely available commercially and there is a known practice of tsethar (releasing live animals bred for food), so their presence is easily explainable. Not sure the mangrove jack's presence can be explained as easily.

1 hour ago, XD351 said:

Awesome ! I wonder if the same technique works on the freshwater mullet and herring in the Nepean? You could go up there and do the  four species thing - bass , mullet , herring and mud marlin.

I think it should, in fact I think I've heard accounts that it works on the mullet. My experience with the Nepean herring is that they are aggressive enough that they will attack other flies and lures, not just bread. No idea what they actually eat.

Bass and mud marlin - yet to get around to those. I will!

21 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Way to go mate 👏👏

Thanks Bob

7 minutes ago, jenno64 said:

Great read Little Flatty! I love reading about the fly caught fish you get!

Thanks Jenno. Likewise I enjoy your reports and the serious fish which you get  

[Green Hornet]

Great report and little session adding a couple of new species to your fly caught resume Mike. Always good to catch up with mates for a cast or two.

[noelm]

Mullet are what started my fly fishing, those Sand/Yellow eye/Flat tails are prevalent almost everywhere, and readily take bread (or bread fly) last summer my grandson and I were catching them and he hooked a big “Bully” he must have covered 100 yards chasing it around before landing it. It is fascinating what else you catch, and it also teaches you how to carry minimal gear and be a complete independent fisherman/person, you need to have everything with you, be able to grab and use it all one handed, while actually being IN the water…… if I plan/hope to keep a fish to eat, I have one of the cheap landing nets on an elastic cord type thing, and have it clipped to my shorts, the stretch cord allows me to land a fish without unclipping it, and being clipped to me, I don’t have to “carry” it as such, same with the keeper net, I just have a net bag thing and tie it to my waist and it just gets towed along, of course it’s not such a big hit pulling your shorts down all the time!

edit…….I forgot, well done!

Edited January 7 by noelm

[Little_Flatty]

38 minutes ago, Green Hornet said:

Great report and little session adding a couple of new species to your fly caught resume Mike. Always good to catch up with mates for a cast or two.

Thanks Pete, it certainly is.

2 minutes ago, noelm said:

Mullet are what started my fly fishing, those Sand/Yellow eye/Flat tails are prevalent almost everywhere, and readily take bread (or bread fly) last summer my grandson and I were catching them and he hooked a big “Bully” he must have covered 100 yards chasing it around before landing it. It is fascinating what else you catch, and it also teaches you how to carry minimal gear and be a complete independent fisherman/person, you need to have everything with you, be able to grab and use it all one handed, while actually being IN the water…… if I plan/hope to keep a fish to eat, I have one of the cheap landing nets on an elastic cord type thing, and have it clipped to my shorts, the stretch cord allows me to land a fish without unclipping it, and being clipped to me, I don’t have to “carry” it as such, same with the keeper net, I just have a net bag thing and tie it to my waist and it just gets towed along, of course it’s not such a big hit pulling your shorts down all the time!

Yep, I've noticed the minimalist part of fly fishing, carrying very little whilst still having everything you need. I've been packing very light the last few years, but moving to fly fishing, I've noticed you tend to have even less stuff on you, particularly if your flies are small.

Having a feed of fish pull your shorts down...I'd be happy with that 

[bessell1955]

That is a very interesting blog about fly fishing.  I enjoyed the read.

[Aussie_fisher]

Great report. I’ve always wondered how to actually catch the mullet jumping around almost everywhere u go from tiny creeks u can jump across to massive lakes and I guess fly fishing is the way.

[Little_Flatty]

1 hour ago, bessell1955 said:

That is a very interesting blog about fly fishing.  I enjoyed the read.

Thanks Bessell.

56 minutes ago, Aussie_fisher said:

Great report. I’ve always wondered how to actually catch the mullet jumping around almost everywhere u go from tiny creeks u can jump across to massive lakes and I guess fly fishing is the way.

They aren’t always catchable in my experience, particularly sea mullet. It’s always worth throwing in some bread to see if they rise. If they do, then a bit of bread on a size 12 hook set 10-30cm under a float can get you into them.

[FishingFables]

3 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

Hi all,

Some of you may recall that Jason (@FishingFables) had some great sessions at Narrabeen Lake recently, catching mullet on bread flies. His excellent reports can be read here: 

and here:

@DerekD and I both wanted in on the action, so a conversation was started in November and finally we got together last evening for a session on the Narrabeen flats. Arrived at 5pm, had a chat and rigged up, then we went out on the flats. Thankfully the water had warmed up a bit since then and we didn't need waders this time.

Jason got a good bread berley trail going and we started casting. Unfortunately we had strong winds to contend with, so getting the flies out there were a real test of our skills, particularly mine! What I hadn't factored in was that the chop would also make it difficult to see our floating 'deadly breadly' flies. Jason advised us that a slow strip of the fly will help with the line management and the fish would hook themselves as a result.

Naturally, Jason was the first to come tight on a little mullet and then a series of other mullet and bream, while Derek and myself stayed fishless. But after persisting a while, I came tight on my first ever fly-caught mullet, which snaffled my sinking fly:

(That's Derek and Jason in the background. Note Jason's orange wet bag hanging off his chest pack. That's filled with berley and within very easy reach, making it easy to maintain a steady berley trail. It's details like that which separate a gun angler from your average one.)

I soon worked out that whilst I was sitting in Jason's berley trail, that the wind was dispersing it faster than first thought, so I pulled out some of my own bread and berleyed up as well. The water swirled in front of me and I had a savage take and I struck, then...nothing...the line went slack! I stripped in my fly to see what happened but felt a fish, albeit a tiny one. We had a laugh as I unhooked and released my first fly caught herring:

Then shortly after that, I had a similar experience with my first fly caught butter fish. I had no idea that these guys were in the lake:

At this point, Derek was still not on the board. Those of you have fished with Derek before will know that the guy likes to talk, so it may have been that the conversation was distracting him from the fishing🤣. At this point, Jason got his phone out to get a sunset photo and right on cue, Derek comes tight on a little bream with the bread fly:

(That's Derek with the fish on, and me in the background). We laugh about the fact that Derek requires a camera on him for motivation 🤣

Unfortunately after that it was time to go, lest we have an unpleasant night time walk back to the cars, whilst getting attacked by mozzies and the like. I rigged up a Skagit shooting head (a really heavy and short line, used for spey/roll casting very long distances) for the boys to play with, and after a few casts each, we head back to the cars, then home.

Though the fish were small and the conditions tough, we were very happy with that session. I for one was happy to up my fly-caught species list from three (Luderick, Flathead, Trevally) to six (Mullet, Herring, Butterfish).

A big thanks to @FishingFables for showing us the ropes. We must do this again sometime, as well as chasing flatties on the same flats.

Thanks for reading!

Mike

My pleasure Mike - great to meet you and Derek and have a fish together. Really happy that you doubled your list of species caught on fly during the outing 🙂

[DerekD]

Hi Jason ( @FishingFables ) and Mike ( @Little_Flatty ),

Thank you for a very pleasant late afternoon fly fishing. I really appreciated the local knowledge. I've fished the lakes often enough to have some aspects worked out but I'd done very little in this section of the lake so it was a real eye opener. I'm keen to try it again and it has given me an idea for other places to try this style of fishing.

Regards,

Derek

[Jay88]

Looks like a fun session! Yes we love ya @DerekD !