A sign of good water quality?

[Plum]

Seen on the River Crouch April 10. I counted 60 mullet in this shoal averaging 25cm. Anyone else seen an increase in mullet numbers this year?

 

[MikeBz]

There always seem to be lots of grey mullet in marinas so I’ve assumed they are not too fussy about water quality.

 

[LittleSister]

There always seem to be lots of grey mullet in marinas so I’ve assumed they are not too fussy about water quality.

They were a different colour before they entered the marina!

 

[Bonefish Blues]

There always seem to be lots of grey mullet in marinas so I’ve assumed they are not too fussy about water quality.

They're often seen grazing near sewage outflows quite happily. Om nom nom, but that's why you will sometimes see the ones in fishmongers marked up 'bay mullet' to indicate they're from different waters. Certainly a question worth asking if you're buying them.

 

[Sailing steve]

Don't be too sure about water quality.

Mullet can thrive where no other fish would even think about feeding - chances are if there's a big shoal of them all that actually means is everything else with fins and gills has already snuffed it.

 

[potentillaCO32]

Do they taste ok?

 

[PeterWright]

In my humble opinion, no and I'm a fairly enthusiastic fish eater, having fish about twice a week.

Peter.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

In my humble opinion, no and I'm a fairly enthusiastic fish eater, having fish about twice a week.

Peter.

Tend to agree, there's better eating fish.

 

[Frayed Knot]

Seen on the River Crouch April 10. I counted 60 mullet in this shoal averaging 25cm. Anyone else seen an increase in mullet numbers this year?

To answer the question: yes. This year and last we've seen many more in the upper Deben than ever before, although not such large shoals of larger fish like that.
Just in the past couple of days though, like this time last year, we've been watching "bait-balls" of several hundred 8 - 12cm fish at Melton - something nobody I've spoken to here has seen before.

 

[Frayed Knot]

Do they taste ok?

I was once talking to a very elderly lady who was born and brought up more or less on the banks of the Deben.
When she was a child her father caught/trapped mullet in the saltings - an important part of the family's diet.
I asked her when the last time was that she ate one.
Her reply was, "A very long time ago - the last time I was bloody hungry!"

 

[oilybilge]

Poor old mullets ... a byword for bad taste in more ways than one

 

[Misterbreeze]

My grandfather spent the last years of his working life at sea on the dredger that chugged in and out of Newhaven day in day out, so he fished to relieve the tedium. My mother complained when she was a kid they were fed mullet nearly every day and when I was growing up I never knew her eat fish of any kind, she hated it. And her maiden name was......Mullet!

 

[oldgit]

Reports of decent sized Bass being caught on rod and line from our mooring pontoons here on the Medway well upstream in Rochester

 

[ducked]

Long time ago I was in my Mirror, becalmed in Wardie Bay, near Granton Harbour. There is/was a steel lattice marker for an sewage outfall there, which we'd drifted fairly close to. Didn't seem to be running at the time, and I THINK probably seldom does now apart perhaps from times of high rainfall.

I'd bought a plastic wrapped Scotch Pie (an especially-dodgy class of pie) in a Granton corner shop (an especially-dodgy class of shop) and now took a bite from it, then had a look at the exposed pie-face, which had a horrible pink colour. Then the matching horrible taste and texture hit me.

I spat

Pie fragments could be seen settling through the water column.

The largish fish hanging around the outfall (I THINK Grey Mullet) darted in from all sides...

...Grabbed a mouthfull

...Spat it out

...and darted out again.

So Grey Mullet may not say much for water quality, but they may be quite reliable indicators of the quality, or otherwise, of Scotch Pies.

 

[DanTribe]

I heard a recipe for grey mullet. Place between two wooden boards and barbecue over a slow fire for an hour. Discard the fish and eat the charred wood.

 

[MikeBz]

A bit of a thread drift (unless you like red wine with your grey mullet), but that reminds me... Many years ago I received a bottle of red wine as a prize at a sailing event. Another competitor picked up the bottle, studied the label with a slight connoisseur-like frown, and then said "I recommend you put that in the cellar for about 5 years. And then move."

 

[KevinV]

A bit of a thread drift (unless you like red wine with your grey mullet), but that reminds me... Many years ago I received a bottle of red wine as a prize at a sailing event. Another competitor picked up the bottle, studied the label with a slight connoisseur-like frown, and then said "I recommend you put that in the cellar for about 5 years. And then move."

There was a bottle of dodgy wine like that in our circle of friends and acquaintances - it went round and round, with each recipient writing the name of the giver on the label, for about 5 years. History (or politeness) doesn't relate who first gave it. It did solve the whole "you have to bring a bottle, but your host won't serve it" thing

Mullet should similarly circulate but not be consumed.

 

[johnalison]

Grey Mullet was on the menu at The Last Anchor when we were up there some years ago. I was very tempted to choose it just to see what a real live chef did with it, but in the end asked myself if I was really prepared to gamble £20 or so on the outcome and miss the chance of a decent meal.

 

[ianc1200]

Did buy some to try from the Company Shed at W Mersea many years ago, found it too tough to eat but our cats loved it!

 

[chriss999]

Red mullet, on the other hand, is just delicious.