Poddy mullet with a hook?

[sashkello]

Hi all!

I'm going to go out tomorrow with my kid to get some livebait. Main target is poddy mullet. My plan is to take my light rods with a float set up, tiny hooks, burley with bread and fish with small bread balls. The question is how do I target mullet specifically because I know most fish goes for bread and I'm not looking forward to unhooking dozens of tiny bream... Maybe we can try some sandflat and use light running sinker setup instead? Let me know if you think it'll work.

Cheers!

[noelm]

Mullet will be up on the flats at high tide, easy to catch with bread and tiny hooks, just a small float so it doesn’t splash too much when cast out. If they are only “Poddies” you will need a very small hook.

[noelm]

When you burley, don’t just toss bread out everywhere, the minute a seagull sees it, or some is floating, the Mullet will buzz off, soak bread in water so it sinks and just kind of “lob” it out in small goes.

[XD351]

We used to use a size 14 long shank hook but mustad no longer make this - you may be able to get a size 12 still . Our method was to berley ( mash up some white bread centres - no crust - in a bit of water to create a sloppy mix a bit like porridge. ) the bait was a tiny bit of bread rolled up to form a ball about 3mm diameter and the was just big enough to fill the gape of the hook . No sinkers , floats or swivels just a very light line around 2lb was good as it went through the eye of the hook easily and created a very small knot . I used to set the length of line at one rod length and leave it there, you can’t cast something that light it’s more like a overhead sweep of the rod that makes the leader unroll and lays the line on the surface gently - it’s a bit like the last forward cast when fly fishing . Don’t go throwing bread around waving your arms in the air as the ducks and seagulls have learned to associate this action with food , we used to try and flick it out with our fingers or flick it out with a similar action to what you would flick a card out when dealing a hand of cards - you don’t need much berley either , you want them to go into a frenzy not fill up on berley! 

If you take some old bread and a keeper net you can set up a feeder bag to keep the seagulls and ducks occupied while you catch bait - just load the net with bread and tie it to something and scatter some bread around this , make sure this is a little bit away from where you are fishing - maybe 30-50m as long as you can see it . 
I watched a video yesterday on catching mullet - albeit bigger ones and the technique he used was something I had never seen - weird sort of rig but it worked ! 

P.S 

If you can’t get small enough hooks then try something from the fly fishing side of things - maybe a nymph hook .

Edited November 1 by XD351

[big Neil]

An interesting rig to use to catch good sized Mullet...the size you seldom catch using a bread loaded Mullet trap. Thanks for sharing the info with us XD.

bn

[big Neil]

11 hours ago, sashkello said:

Hi all!

I'm going to go out tomorrow with my kid to get some livebait. Main target is poddy mullet. My plan is to take my light rods with a float set up, tiny hooks, burley with bread and fish with small bread balls. The question is how do I target mullet specifically because I know most fish goes for bread and I'm not looking forward to unhooking dozens of tiny bream... Maybe we can try some sandflat and use light running sinker setup instead? Let me know if you think it'll work.

Cheers!

So how did you go and what rig did you use to target the Poddy Mullet? I think the main consideration is where you fish for them.

bn

[bessell1955]

Great video.

[Robbo from Sydney]

14 hours ago, XD351 said:

We used to use a size 14 long shank hook but mustad no longer make this - you may be able to get a size 12 still . Our method was to berley ( mash up some white bread centres - no crust - in a bit of water to create a sloppy mix a bit like porridge. ) the bait was a tiny bit of bread rolled up to form a ball about 3mm diameter and the was just big enough to fill the gape of the hook . No sinkers , floats or swivels just a very light line around 2lb was good as it went through the eye of the hook easily and created a very small knot . I used to set the length of line at one rod length and leave it there, you can’t cast something that light it’s more like a overhead sweep of the rod that makes the leader unroll and lays the line on the surface gently - it’s a bit like the last forward cast when fly fishing . Don’t go throwing bread around waving your arms in the air as the ducks and seagulls have learned to associate this action with food , we used to try and flick it out with our fingers or flick it out with a similar action to what you would flick a card out when dealing a hand of cards - you don’t need much berley either , you want them to go into a frenzy not fill up on berley! 

If you take some old bread and a keeper net you can set up a feeder bag to keep the seagulls and ducks occupied while you catch bait - just load the net with bread and tie it to something and scatter some bread around this , make sure this is a little bit away from where you are fishing - maybe 30-50m as long as you can see it . 
I watched a video yesterday on catching mullet - albeit bigger ones and the technique he used was something I had never seen - weird sort of rig but it worked ! 

P.S 

If you can’t get small enough hooks then try something from the fly fishing side of things - maybe a nymph hook .

Thanks for this. Brings back memories as I used to catch mullet in the 1970's in the same spot as the guy in the video.

[Peter K]

Saw this on youtube just now. From Starlo's channel.

 

[riveRecon]

We get to use cast nets in Queensland. I’m going to give this a try, looks like fun 😀 can you use dough instead of bread?

[noelm]

20 minutes ago, riveRecon said:

We get to use cast nets in Queensland. I’m going to give this a try, looks like fun 😀 can you use dough instead of bread?

Yes, it works the same.

 

[sashkello]

Went out to Davidson Park. Burleyed up with bread and saw lots of splashes around. Fished with a pencil float & small hook. Unfortunately the smallest hook available at my local store was 10. Caught a total of 6 mullet in 1 hour. Two 30+ cm, kept them to try how they taste out of curiosity. They were fine, ordinary fish without any particular negatives or positives. Surprisingly more meat in it than its size suggests. Would not mind repeating the experience. All others were between 20 and 30 cm, so unfortunately too big for bait. Will have to order smaller hooks to see whether that will work, as there were lots of bites with no hookups which I assume were smaller mullet. Bream didn't bother much, only hooked them up twice and in addition one slightly undersized luderick which almost snagged me with a kids size combo against it...

So, overall I wish I did get some smaller mullet for livebait, but at the end of the day I'm happy with the result, as I've got some fish and learned from experience, and I think it will work better next time when I have 14 sized hooks in my tackle box.

[noelm]

It’s quite good fun really, especially when you get a bigger one……the most common are Flat Tail/Yellow Eye/Sand Mullet, now and then you might get a Bully. They are quite different eating to big Bull Mullet. Small hooks are the go if you want the smaller ones, or a trap.

[riveRecon]

Small or not, I find fresh mullet to be my best bait in the Noosa River (Apart from live prawns - but I really want to eat those when I get them 🤣). The small mullet are great live, the bigger mullet I cut into roughly 3 inch strips. I only keep what I will eat or use without freezing - that means same day use and seem to catch OK fish most outings.

[sashkello]

23 hours ago, riveRecon said:

Small or not, I find fresh mullet to be my best bait in the Noosa River (Apart from live prawns - but I really want to eat those when I get them 🤣). The small mullet are great live, the bigger mullet I cut into roughly 3 inch strips. I only keep what I will eat or use without freezing - that means same day use and seem to catch OK fish most outings.

Yup, so I cut one up for bait strips and caught some decent fish with them. A big flathead (70+), bream and some whiting. Great bait indeed!