Swan River - MULLET!

[Stephen Winsor]

Morning,

just wondering if anyones hooked into mullet in the swan.. everytime I go wading around the canning I always come across big schools of mullet but never hooked up! whats the secret? burley up with bread? and make flies that look like bread or are you guys doing something else?

Ive heard they are hard to catch!

[Jon Hammond]

I've been seeing big schools of mullet and bait around the Claremont jetty area for the past couple of weeks. Was down there the other night catching a feed of squid and decided to have some fun. I tried to burley them up with bread and was using a bread fly but didn't manage anything. They were schooling/daisy chaining under the lights and I could see them very skittishly breaking away every now and again to grab tiny pieces of bread.

[Tony Ong]

There was a long post on our old forum pages. Summing it up briefly, get ready for some tears. They're fustrating buggers.
Some notes on what we did find out so far.
Small nymph flies will ocassionally get hits. We're talking size 14 - 18 hooks and 2 - 4 lb tippets. When you do hook up, chances of straightening hooks or busting tippet is quite high.
Mullet will hit a clouser or bms out of the blue making you think that they are a worthwhile target.
Resorting to a three pronged attack has come across many people's minds, but it's just not fly fishing.
Burley and bread flies will work.
The best chance of targeting mullet is when there's a flying ant or termite hatch in the area. Of course this means having something in your fly box that matches the hatch.
I've caught two, and both were bycatch. Would love to hear of anyone who has some moderate success on how to target mullet as well.

[Stephen Winsor]

Apparently they fight like MAD! thats why im interested in catching them!

[Jon Hammond]

Plus there are some BIG suckers cruising around in those schools too!

[Tony Ong]

You don't get straightened hooks and busted tippets for no reason. Jon, the big ones are easier to target. They got bigger mouths.

[mat uchino]

Dunno if I posted up this pic of a little tacker I got from in front of Como sea scouts

Can get a few out of the marina at ocean reef too....

[Jon Hammond]

Good stuff Mat - what you have there is a Yellow Eyed Mullet or Pilch which grow to about 40cm or 1kg. I think the larger Mullet we see in the Swan are a different species - Sea Mullet which can get as big as 80cm and 4kg.

I've been told that Pilch are pretty nice smoked!

[mat uchino]

Yeah didn't think that pilch really made it up into the middle of the swan but hey it has been a weird year. Bit over a month ago there was a bunch of mullet down the beach that were actually pretty aggressive and would actively chase baits and lures away from their schools. Got one on an unintentional foul hook (was really hoping for resident tailors and salmon). Bloody went hard on 8lb. Basically a salmon without as many jumps

[Jon Hammond]

I've been seeing bait fisho's getting Pilch down at Claremont jetty at night recently so they seem to be around. There's still STACKS of bait down in Claremont bay!