The mullet have been moving through North East Florida the last couple weeks and brought out the bull reds, tarpon and blacktips in the surf.
Nice one! ;).............Joe
That's a gooder!
What a Pig! :o
nice catch amigo.
are they good eating? I havent seen many recepies of bull reds
Nice fish. I have to do Florida some day. Dominick
Nice, how did you catch those? cut bait? bull minnows?
I see them schooling around Gulf Shores pier and casted a few different things at them but they were not interested.
Very nice,,,,where you are you at ;D
Nice Red. There have been reports of Red tide in Palm Beach County, just north of me. I hope it doesn't have a great impact on the run as they move south.
Nice!
I caught this one on Fernandina Beach. I was using a live 5-6" whiting hooked by the anal fin with a 4/0 circle hook leadered behind 2oz. pyramid sinker. Reds are a slot fish in Florida and this fish was way outside the size limit, but Reds are very tasty, definitely in my top 10. Hope I answered everyone's questions. It was definitely a nice catch, especially after my 10/0 got spooled after a 300yd drop.
Quote from: ReelDragJam on October 02, 2018, 10:55:30 PM
I caught this one on Fernandina Beach. I was using a live 5-6" whiting hooked by the anal fin with a 4/0 circle hook leadered behind 2oz. pyramid sinker. Reds are a slot fish in Florida and this fish was way outside the size limit, but Reds are very tasty, definitely in my top 10. Hope I answered everyone's questions. It was definitely a nice catch, especially after my 10/0 got spooled after a 300yd drop.
so a bottom presentation with a live bait,
I guess I can use a hard tail or a alewive instead.
Thanks a bunch!
No probs. I like to drop between 2nd and 3rd sand bar then feeding about 3 feet of line to give bait a little range of movement. Those reds love whiting, lol. Up until that one, I never could break the 15lb mark, blew it out with a 35lb fish.
Nice! Bet that was fun!! 8)
Nice fish!
I'm curious about the mullet run. According to local bait shops, it is going on in New Jersey currently as well. Interesting that it happens in Florida and NJ at the same time. Although I have never seen live mullet in NJ, I'm told they are leaving the back bays and headed out the inlets into the ocean. Do they go north, south, or seaward? Where do they run to?
They are traveling south to warmer waters. I'm not sure if it's to spawn or not but in the spring, they will turn around and head back north. Lots stay put also, mullet are in S. Florida year round, don't know exactly how they determine who goes and who stays. I will say this though, I noticed a lot of sardine schools as well. It's funny, I only saw tarpon busting the sardine schools not the mullet.
That's a nice red.
I believe the mullet are heading south to spawn. When the get to south Florida they turn left out toward the Gulf Stream.
My favorite seafood is salted and dried mullet roe. Remove the ovary intact and cure the whole thing. Then slice it very thin. It is so rich that a little goes a long way. Serve as a tapa with sliced green onion.
-steve
Sounds good, Steve. Where do you buy it if you're not making it yourself?
I had never heard the word "tapa" before. My wife says "pasaboca" for snack. Maybe the meaning is slightly different.
They have tapas bars here, it's kinda of trendy. Like a dab of food on a small plate. My wife likes it but I'm still hungry when I leave. I try to avoid places that have the words "small plate" or "drizzle" in the description of the food.
That salted roe sounds really good.
Tapa is sort of Spanish for hors d'oeuvre.... like an appetizer or snack. I have no idea where you would buy cured mullet roe, but it is easy enough to do at home.
In the 1970's Florida gill netters would hit the mullet migration in the fall and send the roe to Taiwan. The roe was worth more than the meat; at least at that time. Beaver Street Seafood in JAX was a big player. Most of it was shipped fresh frozen but some guys were doing the drying in Florida too; again for export. The hatchery I was working in back then would buy frozen broken ovaries (where someone accidentally nicked the membrane with a knife or something) and we would feed the eggs to prawn larvae. You get pretty sick of looking at the stuff when you have to handle it every day. A decade later I was in Taiwan for a few weeks and my host ordered up dried mullet roe as an appetizer. I had been eating everything placed in front of me so as not to insult anyone but, my god, that mullet roe was good. Can't say the same about mud skippers though.
Thereafter, and before moving from the East Coast, I would keep an eye out for big mullet in the fall in hopes of cast-netting a fat female. Here in Hawaii, mullet are more highly prized and the fishery is closed during the spawning season.
-steve