Does anyone ever catch those mullet?

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MissIsle

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When you look over the side on a rising tide, more often than not there are a shoal of large grey mullet nosing arround the boats.
Does anyone ever try & catch them, & if so how?
If you do catch one do they taste OK or are they best left where they are?
 
Grey mullet have rather unsavoury eating habits which is why you see loads of them around sewer outfalls etc. and this diet is said to taint the flesh. They are not that easy to catch and have very soft mouths so that any hook can pull out, damaging the fish.
That said, in my youth I used to spearfish and have taken many greys ( usually in quite shallow water) and provided they were gutted quickly and cooked and eaten soon after, they tasted fine.
 
grey harbour mullett I am told are best left where they are. They are sift feeders, filtering fine particles of food from mud and sand and are virtually impossible to catch with hook and line.. Also the risk of food poisoning if you eat one is almost guaranteed. I was in Genoa a couple of years ago and the water all round the boat was as smelly and polluted as anywhere I have ever been. I noticed a huge thrashing commotion in the water by the harbour wall and went to investigate.
It was a massive shoal of very well fed mullet in a feeding frenzy on the untreated sewage pouring out of one if the city drains. I'll stick to cod, thanks.
 
There are many whoppers swimming around the Marina in Weymouth, a fantastic sight, but as has been said, we were told ignore them because of their dietary habits.
And very hard to catch with bait, as I have witnessed through all the anglers trying their damnedest.
 
I watched the Canarians catching them a few years ago in the river on Gran Canaria near to Puerto Mogan, they used about 10 snoods all the same length all baited with bread, they flicked the line out, Mullet attacked the bread, they struck an almost always caught a fish. We have a cave on Kefalonia where freshwater emerges from, Mullet can be caught quite easily using fine line and hooks. Who eats them or buys them? your local chinese restraunts do! no one else bothers, they taste like cra9
 
Davy_S said:
I watched the Canarians catching them a few years ago in the river on Gran Canaria near to Puerto Mogan, they used about 10 snoods all the same length all baited with bread, they flicked the line out, Mullet attacked the bread, they struck an almost always caught a fish.
Click to expand...

I will inform the hapless lot in Dorset then...they try often!
 
Davy_S said:
I watched the Canarians catching them a few years ago in the river on Gran Canaria near to Puerto Mogan, they used about 10 snoods all the same length all baited with bread, they flicked the line out, Mullet attacked the bread, they struck an almost always caught a fish. We have a cave on Kefalonia where freshwater emerges from, Mullet can be caught quite easily using fine line and hooks. Who eats them or buys them? your local chinese restraunts do! no one else bothers, they taste like cra9
Click to expand...

Saw a similar thing in Almerimar marina, seemed to be mostly foul hooking them. Not sure I would want to eat them but I am aware some one fed one to their dog who seemed to enjoy it
 
MissIsle said:
When you look over the side on a rising tide, more often than not there are a shoal of large grey mullet nosing arround the boats.
Does anyone ever try & catch them, & if so how?
If you do catch one do they taste OK or are they best left where they are?
Click to expand...


In the 50's and early 60's as a small boy my my Grandfather used to take me fishing under Poole Bridge trying to catch Mullet. Many Many Hours were spent.. Never caught one !

He used to say if we ever did catch one the best way of cooking them was to put them in a pan of boiling water with herbs, spices and an old plimsole.. Boil for 3 hours, then throw the fish away and eat the plimsole !!!

However on a posotive note I know someone who says they are quite edible & even tasty if you dry smoke them over Oak Chippings.
 
[ Who eats them or buys them? your local chinese restraunts do! no one else bothers, they taste like cra9 ]

What a shame, we love crab!:
The general consensus seems to be that you might suffer from the "Delli dance moves" after eating it, so it's probably best to leave them where they are. They are still fun to watch.
 
Just a further comment to add here is that if you see a yacht sailing next to you slightly heeled with what looks like finger marks in the underwater surfaces, it is the result of grey mullet eating the scum from the hull,and probably a proportion of antifouling with it!

Very recently my hull underside was looking like a jungle and I had a couple of resident mullet there -with poor appetites obviously, but pretty sizeable-about 4 lb each 18-20" long.
Mullet for eating are served with quite spicy sauces as they have a bland,earthy taste.

The ones that were shot(!) were in the Agadir approaches (in 1950-51) where they swam with their heads out of the water looking like turtle's heads, the rest of the shoal proceeded as if nothing had happened, and those were very large fish.

We've caught a couple of fleet/shoal bass that come up the river on the making tide, the deeper ones of these are the largest and will take a small shiny spinner if dropped amongst the shoal, quite good eating too I'm told.

ianat182
 
I'm with the 'leave 'em there' school, but a chum was keen on diving when a young teenager, and took to visiting a well known marina in Chichester Harbour, equipped with a spear-gun as he reckoned it the only way to catch Grey mullet.

He didn't particularly want to eat them, just became frustrated that conventional fishing didn't work.

He soon became aware that it is a poor idea to aim a spear-gun in water at an elusive fish, when there's a very expensive GRP boat behind it - 007 had nothing on his getaway, but no lasting harm done. :rolleyes:
 
they can be caught with tiny hooks & patience till the hook can get a grip inside them insted of the mouth , wouldn't eat one , yuk
 
MissIsle said:
When you look over the side on a rising tide, more often than not there are a shoal of large grey mullet nosing arround the boats.
Does anyone ever try & catch them, & if so how?
If you do catch one do they taste OK or are they best left where they are?
Click to expand...

Hi, It is not too difficult to hook and land large mullet if light tackle,small hooks and a landing net are employed. I have caught many over the years,one of 6lbs. plus. Floating bread is the most exiting method-there is always a thrill in seeing a fish engulf a floating bait. My 7 year old son got into a real big one in spain once on a rod I made from a discarded fibreglass car radio ariel and a bit of broomstick. The reel cost about 3 quid and the slipping clutch that allowed the fish to take line got so hot that it melted and subsequently siezed causing the light line to break.He managed to land a smaller one a bit later by backwinding to give line. Mullet may not be a top eating fish but as a fighting sport fish they have few equals. The last decent one I landed was from Queen Annes Battery Marina. A sport fishing charter boat skipper was trying his luck with no success from the back of his boat. I saw the size of the hooks he was using and realised why. A little later the bread he had thrown in to attract the Mullet drifted to the end of our pontoon, with Mullet still feeding on it.I used a size 12 hook-about a quarter inch gape-and hooked and landed a five pounder second cast. If I can do it it cant be that hard! They can be very frustrating and almost appear to tease you approaching a bait and turning away at the last second. Thats when you need to take a break and put the kettle on.
 
Mullet tipping and other sports

I did some digging around about them as they are the most commonly spotted fish on the east coast

apparently they more or less hibernate in deep places until the surface water temps get to 10 C

there is a report from a diver operating in the winter somewhere around the solent - he came across massive shoal of torpid mullet all resting on the bottom. He said you could swim up to them and tip them over - just like young farmers do with sleeping cows.

the mouths are very soft and the hooks won't stay in

I am told that the way to catch them is to put weighted string bags of bread just below the low water mark- do that for a week or more and them come in with your light tackle and bread crumbs

and yes.... their favourite spot is to spend hours with their heads stuck up sewage pipes

yummie

all round better to just watch them I reckon

film of mullet and more information on this film here

http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/2009-season/upper-deben/

Dylan
 
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As others have said mullet from harbours are great sporting fish but dodgy eating.

Those caught away from habitation are still sporting fish and they also make great eating.

Always fairly difficult to catch tho'
 
MissIsle said:
When you look over the side on a rising tide, more often than not there are a shoal of large grey mullet nosing arround the boats.
Does anyone ever try & catch them, & if so how?
If you do catch one do they taste OK or are they best left where they are?
Click to expand...
Dont you mean turd munchers?
Stu
 
Plenty of large ones in Chichester Marina. You leave them alone, as mentioned above they eat and keep the slime off of Ronhilda quite well.
I did watch an extra large one make a move towards the Black swan last year by my stern, poor Swan was so surprised it jumped a couple of feet out of the water. I noticed the Swan poo on my bathing platform stopped about that time as the Swan moved elesewhere to sleep. Probably thought the Swan foot was a competitor I suppose.
I guess the size of them is why the seals come into the marina midweek at free flow although I have not seen this recently.

Brian
 
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