Saturday on SI.

Had a family beach day and brought along a rod and cast net. Finally was able to find some mullet on the beach and was netting finger mullet in the 4-6 inch range. Fished the afternoon outgoing and 1/2 of incoming.

Used a single circle hook rig with 2oz pyramid sinker. Hooked mullet through the lips and just launched it as far as I could. A bunch of the mullet got bit in half. I did get the culprit, about a 15" blue and some baby sharks (are they blacktips or sharpnose?). Lot of menhaden on the surface.

Anyone hook your live bait under the dorsal instead of the lips to increase you hook up ratio?
Go with J hooks instead of circle?
Also, there’s another little bait fish I sometimes catch in the surf. It’s similar size to the mullet but has some black stripes running along the length of it’s body. Couldn’t find any pix online. Anyone know what these are? I didn’t use any for bait, just let my kids play with them. (they probably would have preferred being hooked through the lips and fed to some bluefish)

2014 Key West 203DFS
1987 Landau

the sharks are sharpnose if they’re not football-shaped (the size and shape of a blacktip when it’s born) and the minnows would be striped killifish.

cool fact that the kids might like, the orientation of the stripes tells you if it’s a male or female. popular for flounder bait a little north of here, and cousins to the mummichog (“mudminnow”)

oops, meant to add that males have many vertical bars and females have a few stripes