Live mullet?

[John F]

Anyone ever used mullet as livebait for offshore gamefish?

Been cooking a plan using mullet and lot's of people say they die quickly and don't really make good live baits?

Would love to hear some good/bad experiences....

[CLS]

Anyone ever used mullet as livebait for offshore gamefish?

Been cooking a plan using mullet and lot's of people say they die quickly and don't really make good live baits?

Would love to hear some good/bad experiences....

I have used them for Garrick off the boat but don't last long when being trolled.

[John F]

Thanks Chris .... is this using a balloon on drift/anchor or simply hooking them and tossing them out?

My plan is to use them as a drifting kite bait... circle hook at the back or nose...

[Lenny]

I know 7/10 was prepared to use them as pitch baits in the tomt.


Pending on how you rig them , they stay alive for longer than  One would think , defrosted a plus if your casting long distances and the mullet bellyflops on the surface lol .


My advice would be , rig them with doing the least damage to them .
Make sure your hook will not turn into the bait when getting a bite .


Wait wait and wait when you get a pull the culprit must take line some guys believe in counting to 10 before striking ,even with j hooks , give the fish time ( I am ummmm well inshore offshore the species differ from use using them for kob from the beach . ) but giving the fish a few  counts before tightening up .


Avoid double hook traces , mullet has a way of messing up your hooks in them when fishing with two hooks . Two hooks work but one j or one circle will be better .


We have successfully , slow trolled them in the breede with great success on the leeries , just a float , and a circle


The bigger the mullet the better .


I would suggest , just putting a circle through the top jaw for what you are planning .dont do the eye socket rig .

[CLS]

Thanks Chris .... is this using a balloon on drift/anchor or simply hooking them and tossing them out?

My plan is to use them as a drifting kite bait... circle hook at the back or nose...

I tried trolling but they didn't last, pitching on the drift would work.

[John F]

Thanks gents

[Catchandrelease123]

Hello I went fishing this past December with live mullet in an estuary. I tried 7/0 Eagle Claw circle hooks with the double cable tie method and let the garrick run different times ( 10sec , 1min , 2 min) and I missed about 3 fish. (Each time that I reeled the mullet back in after a missed run the point of the circle hook was burried into the mullets head so no hookup there)Do note that I know how to “set” circle hooks I use them all the time for Barbel in the Vaal and they work great. Then I tried just nose hooking the mullet and that did not work either. I was getting frustrated missing 8 garrick. The runs were hard and fast , solid runs . Then I put a 2/0
J hook through the mullets lip and caught my first garrick 76cm total length. The garrick swallowed the hook , I snipped the line and released the garrick. Please can someome tell me what I am doing wrong I don’t understand.

[Drago]

Thanks Chris .... is this using a balloon on drift/anchor or simply hooking them and tossing them out?

My plan is to use them as a drifting kite bait... circle hook at the back or nose...

I am guessing you have not done kite of the boat yet . Mullet is a soft bait and it will fall apart quick after being bounced of surface few times . We use mullet only on trap stick and as a bottom bait .  I would rather catch slightly larger Bonnie and cut the stomach area and stitch it together and will use a J hook rather.( this to practice with as it won’t come off easy ) .  Maasbanker would be lot better I think.

[John F]

Have used other live baits on the kite, but not mullets ....

[Drago]

I was to get the kite as I have electric reel but put it on hold for now as it seem to be a great challange to do this from boat + need good eyes to see the take on distance . Lot of trial and error. I was advised by guy in USA that does it and told me what to use and how to practice with hard to fall off dead bait ( silver part of belly )as first .  As you will drown kite few times till you get to know how to work with it. Once you drown it , You will have to drive to the kite to get it out as you will brake it if you pull it in try to lift it off water . You need to tie a small balloon to prevent kite going deep under water . Then was told to use small hard live bait no longer then the size of hand once you get right with kite .


 It will be a great skill once you get hang of it.  Would love to hear from you after you tried it. Not many in SA do it . But we also have dodgy waters and inconsistent wind . Picking an ideal day for kite drift is only handful in a year I guess . Strong gusts of wind are really bad for kite drift . You have to get kite high up where more consistent wind is , so yes 800- 1000m of 65lb waxed stiffer braid ( like boss ) should be on a kite reel. Then you should have two different kites , from closed one to a Swiss cheese type for stronger winds. Release clips and so on.  Despite that , you should have larger drouge anchor , right for your size of boat.  I guess you know all this . I also don’t see doing kite without electric reel as that must be very hard to winch the kite back to boat with any multiplier reel.

[John F]

Been doing it for about 3 years now.... check some of my reports on the Offshore section...

A few quick comments, based on my experience.

It is not as SCARY or COMPLICATED as it seems or people like to think. What I did was as soon as I received the kite was take it to the beach and experiment.... see how it flies, even took a rod and reel.... only when I was comfortable enough I took it offshore.   

An electric reel is NOT mandatory... I'm using a Penn Senator 9/0 (got it from Ziggy - it was his dad's so good Mojo there!) and a Daiwa Sealine 600H.... got 50 Lb braid on both of them. No issues so far.

Maputo bay is a very windy place. We hardly get days with less than 6-7 knots for more than 5 h. So wind is definitely not an issue. I don't launch on days with winds of +15 knots anyway, so, pretty much every day is potentially a kite fishing day.... I got a general kite (Aftco rated to fly between 4-16 knots) so no problem putting it up there. I've had the fly up there in winds stronger than 18 kntos and it held perfectly. I hard fly the kite further than 100 m from the boat. No need actually....

The balloon is a MUST. Can't afford to loose it!!!!

Not sure why people don't use kites more often in our region. Great technique and you can still do other stuff.... we usually do bottom fishing, drift baits with balloons, and even jigging when my brother feels like it....