I work for a company located off the cooper river and thought I would take a Friday Lunch and after work to catch some bait fish at the Virginia Ave. Boat Landing.
Any thoughts on how to catch baitfish in the lil creek to the landing?
Think I could use a cast net out there?
I’m thinking of taking a light rod and some size 2 hooks, just not sure what bait to use for mullet. An ideal would be an artificial bait or lure that I can just run down there and cast out from time to time.
bread dough on a #6. just mix water with white bread until you make a sticky paste. rather odd way to go about it, but great for keeping kids busy if there’s a school of large mullet around.
cast net would be much simpler. load in one hand, drink with the other. wait for bait to show.
most of the mullet right now are on their way to FM size at like 2", or are little ponies at 8-10" long. only found a few of the good 3-4" size an hour ago at low tide way up a creek while i was loading up on brown shrimp.
You might try a Sabiki rig also. I haven’t tried it for Mullet, but it will catch Shiners, Pinfish, and small Croakers pretty well…might work for Mullet. I know the Dough Balls work…used to use them in the bayous in Mississippi to catch them when we were kids.
PioneerLouie
Pioneer Venture 175, Johnson 90
Summerville, SC
Up in N. C. around the Outer Banks, the ole’ salts say Mullet is the best fish to eat too. Their mode is to put Mullet skin down on a grill and grill them with smoke chips in the charcoal; only tried it once, couldn’t get past the oily nasty texture for my opinion.
The mullet caught near the ocean taste great. Just fillet and skin the fillets to remove most of the darker, oily flesh near the lateral line. Fry them like whiting and they are excellent. On the other hand, the mullet you catch up river have a muddy taste and seem to have a more oily taste than what you catch closer to the ocean. They don’t call these things ‘Biloxi Bacon’ for nothing folks. When growing up on the Gulf Coast, I had a 12’ very wide mesh net that was designed to catch large mullet only…and it did…and it caught plenty. I took one with me when I moved to Folly Beach and caught our supper many a night with it. The ocean run mullet are very tasty.
PioneerLouie
Pioneer Venture 175, Johnson 90
Summerville, SC
i like when discussions turn from catching bait to eating it!
my girlfriend’s grandma likes nothing better than a roe mullet in the fall. my dad fillets them and soaks them in buttermilk for a while before frying like PL said. i like to put them on the smoker similar to mac daddy’s suggestion.
i’ve found that anything oily (bluefish, mackerel, mullet) turns out awesome after an overnight soak in brine, then a long trip to smoky town. pecan and cherry wood are my favorites so far, have been using split oak from the burn barrel as the main heat source. add cream cheese, lemon, garlic, chives, worcestershire, then blend and eat next day on crackers. snacktastic!
heck, “God’s Waiting Room” has a bag limit on the recreational take of mullet! 15 million floridians can’t be wrong… in this case, at least.
Im no scientist but I imagine mullet have a very different diet in Florida? Maybe im mistaken, but if their diet is different would their meat have a different flavor? Possibly better tasting in Fl. due to cleaner water?
Dad used to catch them in the brackish water at Bluff Plantation. Small hook, tiny piece of Georgia wiggler, and a light cork. Don’t horse them as they have a “tender” mouth. I didn’t like to eat them but Dad still loves them fresh. He claimed the ones in brackish water tasted better than in pure salt. Can’t back that up, just saying.
When the human race dies out it will
be because it was brainwashed to be
so totally, completely, utterly safe
that it no longer dared to keep on
living.---- Author Unknown.
My cousin in Southport makes a awesome mullet stew. I had a neighbor form Mississippi that would keep the large ones scale and gut them and nail them to a board through the head and smoak them by a fire and they were pretty tasty.
