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Volume 8, Issue 12 |
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Page 2 |
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Reprinted for your convenience, courtesy of the Palm Beach Post Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 27, 2007
After weeks of speculation among anglers, the fall mullet are here.
The dark underwater clouds of forage fish have started moving along the beaches of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, followed by tarpon, jacks, bluefish and sharks.
Mullet had been trickling into inshore waters for weeks. Blustery weather that accompanied the arrival of fall this week triggered the migrating schools of bait fish to start moving along the beaches.
At the Palm Beach public beach Sunday, tarpon flashed silver in waves around brownish blobs of schooling mullet just off the beach. When the fish-filled waves crested, tarpon attacked, sending mullet leaping into the air and entertaining morning beach walkers.
Jim Barry of West Palm Beach hooked four tarpon using live mullet on a circle hook at Palm Beach that morning, including one that stripped out about 200 yards of line before it broke off.
"I had one fish I know was over 100 pounds," Barry said, adding that he also caught and released a spinner shark that was cruising in the trough just a few feet from the sand and caught a 6-pound bluefish using a big mullet on a 9/0 circle hook.
David Andrews hooked a tarpon at Palm Beach on Sunday by casting out a Bomber Mullet plug on a spinning rod loaded with 30-pound-test line. His tarpon headed for the Bahamas, jumped and spit the plug.
Falling water temperatures trigger mullet to gather in inlets and estuaries in late summer before they begin their annual southward migration along the beaches in preparation for spawning offshore.
How long the mullet will grace our beaches is anybody's guess. Last fall, the mullet moved through and disappeared quickly. But for now, at least, anglers are having fun fishing around the mullet - and schools of small Spanish sardines that have been showing up in the surf and around inlets.
At Fort Pierce Inlet last week, Richard Bradford of Port St. Lucie tossed his cast net once to catch about 30 finger mullet. He kept a few aside for bait, hoping to catch a (Continued on page 5) |
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Animated Knots by Grog
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