Nine Mullet Day

Venue today was an estuary about an hour's drive from Kilcrohane where I've had some big bags of mullet before ... but it can be a very moody venue.

We arrived to find one of the bridge arches on the road causeway collapsed in the flash floods the previous weekend, and the road causeway closed to traffic. This actually enabled us to park on the road very close to the fishing! 

Even better, good numbers of mullet could be seen swirling in the pool below the causeway.

We moved down onto a rocky area. The deepest water in the pool is close to the rocks and as Steve already had float tackle set up he tried trotting down through the swim. He missed one good bite but in general terms a headwind was making it difficult for him to get far enough out from the rocks.

I set up a leger rod to fish a pop-up crust on a short trace and cast this out onto the shallows beyond the deeper channel. There was a big whelm where the bait landed and I assumed the splash had spooked a fish. But I couldn't tighten up on the weight and after a few seconds wondering what was going on I realised, incredibly, that a mullet had taken the bait almost as soon as it had landed and was swimming towards me! I wound in the slack as quickly as possible, struck and contacted the fish. It was not a monster at 2:08 but an interesting start to the session.

Oddly after that instant start, we couldn't get another bite in that first swim despite being able to see mullet swimming around and over our baits.

We moved to fish the much deeper pool just above the bridge on the other side of the causeway. A couple of fish were topping occasionally and we were soon both getting bites on float tackle. I was lucky enough to be the first to contact one, a lovely thicklip of 3lb 8oz which fought way above its weight.

While I was playing that Steve missed a couple more bites but it was me in next again, a two pounder on my very next cast. 

After that I stopped for lunch and hoped Steve would strike lucky, but the swim had died either from the disturbance of playing and returning my two fish or maybe they were the only two fish in the pool.

Soon after, the tide turned and water started pouring through the bridge arch into the pool making fishing difficult. I took a walk along the causeway and was pleased to see many good mullet still swirling on the other side. I went back and suggested to Steve that as there was no traffic on the road we could fish comfortably from the causeway itself and maybe the newly arrived tide would have them feeding better.

I missed another huge slack line bite on pop-up crust on my second cast, and suggested Steve change his flake bait to crust.

Sure enough he was soon playing a mullet just under 3lbs. Then I had the biggest fish of the day at 4:10, Steve lost another having played it almost in to the causeway, then he had a three pounder. Two more 3s followed for me in quick succession as the fish retreated down the pool away from the causeway on the dropping tide, then a couple of missed bites, then the final mullet of the day at 2lb 13oz.