Upper-floor condominium units provide ideal observation points for anglers and their friends to keep an eye on migrating mullet and other fish activity. Steve Waters/The Coastal Star
By Steve Waters
Palm Beach County anglers look forward to this time of year because now is when schools of mullet swim south along the beaches from Jupiter to Boca Raton.
Fishing what’s known as the fall mullet run became much more efficient and enjoyable thanks to a single technological innovation — the cellphone.
As water temperatures along the state’s northern coastline start to cool, the baitfish migrate to South Florida as they get ready to spawn. A variety of predator species feast on the mullet, notably bluefish, Spanish mackerel, tarpon, snook, jacks and sharks.
In the old days, anglers wasted a ton of time looking for and waiting for mullet schools to show up. The best way to find out the location of the mullet was to have reliable sources who lived in beachfront condominiums.
When those condo residents went out on their balconies and saw a school of mullet — which looks like a dark amoeba as it gyrates through the water — and the hungry gamefish crashing into the school, they would call their fishing friends.
Those anglers would hustle down to the beach with their surf-fishing tackle or head out the nearest inlet in their boats and fish around the schools. Their fishing buddies would find out that they caught some or all of the available species later that day.
Virtually no fisherman was going to take the time to go to a pay phone to call and say that the mullet were currently off Delray Beach or Boca and to get down there ASAP.
Cellphones changed all that.
You could be at work when a friend calls to say that the mullet are off Juno Beach and jacks and bluefish are busting up the schools. That sends the baitfish flying, and the stunned mullet are gobbled up by those and other gamefish, which also pounce on half-eaten mullet as the remnants sink to the bottom.
Although anglers no longer have to drive along A1A from one end of the county to the other in search of mullet schools, or head to a local beach and wait for the mullet to show up, they do need sources they can count on.
I had a buddy who was not at all reliable, which I didn’t discover until after several fruitless trips to the beach. He’d call me to say the mullet were off Juno or Boynton or Boca. I and a couple of other friends would drive there and trudge down to the beach with our rods, tackle boxes and coolers, only to find that there were no mullet and no mackerel or bluefish or jacks.
It was late in the afternoon on a day when we hadn’t even gotten a bite when one of my friend’s friends showed up. When I expressed my disappointment that the mullet hadn’t shown up, he said that he told my friend that the mullet had been at the beach every morning around 7:30.
My friend, who liked to sleep until 10 a.m., perhaps because he drank a bottle of wine every night, never told me that.
Happily, the reliable fisherman also said that one of his good sources said a mullet school was heading our way and to stick around.
Sure enough, as the sun began heading toward the horizon behind us, the mullet showed up. Casting a 5/8th-ounce silver Krocodile spoon — which is one of the most effective lures for fishing the mullet run because you can throw it a long way and it wobbles and flashes as you reel it back — we caught a bunch of bluefish.
As we packed up our fish and tackle, I exchanged cellphone numbers with that fisherman, and vowed to let future calls from my fishing buddy go to voicemail.
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