Mullet fishing on fly part ONE

I have been wanting to go fly fishing for Mullet for a while, and yesterday was my first opportunity, the tide was low at lunch time and there was no wind or RAIN!

I made up a huge bucket of ground bait, by mixing bread and minced mackerel. I used this mixture as the tide went out to create a scent trail for the Mullet to follow and to encourage the Mullet to start feeding on bread and mackerel particles.

This approach worked well, but the size of the Mullet was small. I had a large shoal forming and feeding well on the ground bait. As the tide turned and the flood started I noticed the average size of the Mullet was much larger. I wanted to catch the Mullet on a surface fly (I need to see the take in order to hook them) so I introduced floating bread crusts into the slick of ground bait. This worked and the Mullet started sipping the floating crusts.

Once the fish were feeding confidently from the surface I started to fish for them, staying in the deepest water I could manage, walking backwards slowly in order to prevent being marooned.

I used a deer hair fly on a size 10 short shank. The Deer hair was scorched on on side to represent the darker crust. A deer hair fly stays very bouyant compared to hackle flies. I cast across and behind the Mullet so the flow of the tide carried the floating fly line and fly over the feeding fish. Keeping tension on the fly line was hard, but necessary so a take could be converted easily into hooking a fish.

I managed to get 4 fish to take the fly, hooking one for about 40 seconds before it un-hooked its self. The fight was imense for a fish I would estimate to be around 3/4 of a pound. Sadly I never managed to land a Mullet on this session, but there is always next time.