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Mullet are plentiful now

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Captain Bill Miller

Tribune correspondent

Published: October 10, 2009

The east coast mullet run is underway and anglers from Sebastian to Vero Beach are catching tarpon, redfish, snook, sharks, kingfish, Spanish mackerel and others along the beach out to 30 feet of water.

This time of year finger mullet, mullet up to about 12 inches, migrate along the beaches of the east coast. When this migration starts it triggers a feeding frenzy of all types of fish. It is not hard to see the mullet schools. When the schools are being attacked by predators, they are leaping out of the water 10 to 20 fish at a time trying to escape.

I was fishing out of Port Canaveral this week with captain Jim Ross filming for "Hooked on Fishing."

After we caught about 30 finger mullet inside, we came out of the channel at Port Canaveral and went south off Cocoa Beach where we encountered massive schools of menhaden. We call them shad on our coast.

Sharks, blue fish and tarpon were feeding in the menhaden schools. After drifting and slow trolling mullet around the schools and catching only sharks and blue fish, we decided to throw the cast net and catch menhaden for bait, hoping to hook a tarpon.

I slowly motored Ross' boat up to the school of menhaden and Ross threw the cast net. To our surprise, up comes an 80-pound tarpon, jumping next to the boat, wrapped in our cast net. Lucky for us, it tore a giant hole in the net and got away without pulling Ross overboard.

After that excitement, we ran north to the beaches off Cape Canaveral. We found mullet schools moving right along the surf line in 2 to 5 feet of water. Right behind them were schools of giant redfish.

Every time we cast a nose-hooked mullet into the redfish schools, we were hooked up to redfish up to 35 inches. We caught and released more than 30 of the giants before going home. A 30-pound kingfish was caught in 5 feet of water off Vero Beach by anglers using the same technique.

A few more kingfish were caught this week off our coast. Reports of scattered catches off Pasco 1, the Rube Allyn, the South County Reef, the Betty Rose and the Egmont ship channel indicate the kings are moving our way. Look for the next cold front to push more kings to us.

Captain Bill Miller hosts "Hooked on Fishing" on Bright House Sports Network, Channel 47. To book a charter with captain Bill or his son captain Billy, call (813) 363-9927.

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