More December Mullet

Make hay while the sun shines. Or translated for West Cork, catch mullet while the mild, still, misty weather persists ...

I arrived at Rosscarbery to find the water still well down and mullet all over the estuary pool topping, bow-waving and occasionally jumping. They seemed slightly more numerous near the top end so I walked round to the grass bank by the bridge arch and set up my leger rods there.

I was getting knocks from the off, most of which were probably line bites. I struck and missed one on the left-hand rod that seemed a bit more persistent, then while I was baiting it up again, the right-hand rod nodded twice and I was into a smallish mullet on that which came off half way in.

Over the next hour it was literally a bite a chuck and I couldn't get both lines out at the same time ... four mullet resulted, all the smaller classes of fish that seem to have arrived en masse over the last month. They weighed 1:12, 2:09, 2:10 and 3:01. Then after a slight slowing of proceedings another of 2:10. Not the biggest mullet in the world but it was really great fun getting plenty of bites and each fish giving a great scrap.

At this stage, a band of scum announced the arrival of the new tide from the channel to my left. The mullet turned off as if someone had thrown a switch - suddenly no bites and hardly any fish topping. I can only presume this is a temperature-shock effect as the cold sea water pours into the pool.

The last few fish I saw moving were right down the bottom of the pool so I wondered if they had all moved off that way ahead of the sea water. I packed up and moved down the west bank but by the time I arrived there were no fish visible there either.

A very slow couple of hours passed and it wasn't till the water had started to drop away towards dusk before I started seeing fish again. I had a couple of line-bite bumps and then finally a good take. A terrific stubborn fight followed from a fish that turned out to be another 4:10 ... definitely not the same fish as Thursday though as this one was longer. When I first saw it in the edge I thought it was going to weigh more but it was quite lean down its flanks.