The seasonal north-to-south migration of mullet and other baitfish along the Southeast Florida coast — and the predators that follow them — might be nearing its peak, with only a few more weeks left before it fizzles.
Rainy low-pressure systems, followed by last week’s first strong cold front of the season, have drawn huge schools of black and silver mullet, pilchards, sardines, mojarra and other bait out of the estuaries of the eastern seaboard and sent them streaming south.
Chasing and chowing down on them are tarpon, shark, snook, redfish, bluefish, mackerel, jacks and others. More blustery weather is forecast for the Southeast Florida coast this week, so the bait run should keep coming.
Palm Beach light-tackle guide captain KC said he can’t believe more fishermen aren’t taking advantage of these no-brainer fishing conditions.
“I called a couple charters and said, ‘if you don’t get 20 tarpon bites, you don’t have to pay,’ ” he said.
In a huge frenzy of schooling mullet Friday night,he said he and his customers had 40 shots at tarpon.
“Palm Beach Inlet is like a pile-up spot where mullet wait till night to run across the inlet so they don’t get annihilated by jacks,” the guide explained.
The bait run tends to lull between weather fronts, leading some anglers and guides to call it inconsistent or sporadic.
“It’s been more like a trickle with no real peak to it,” captain Kc, who charts the annual migration on his /mullet run page, said Monday. “Usually, about November, it’s over. Hopefully we get a new blast coming through.”
One of the best spots in the region to take advantage of the annual mullet run is at Sebastian Inlet, accessible by boat or on the jetty at Sebastian Inlet State Park.
Following last week’s cold front, hordes of pier anglers at the park hooked up to snook, redfish, black drum and other species attacking school after school of silver mullet that poured south along the beach and seemed to bump into the jetty on the outgoing tide.
Catching bait was no problem for anyone. Hoop nets, bridge nets, dip nets, and five-gallon buckets worked almost as well as cast nets in capturing all the mullet most anglers would need for a day of fishing.
Captain Kacey Karas made one throw of his cast net near the Sebastian River bridge, and filled it so full that he had trouble hauling it aboard his skiff. Then He and a customer made repeated drifts along the edge of the inlet with live silver mullet dangling below one-ounce sinkers, scoring seven hook-ups. But none of the mystery fish stayed on the line. However, two anglers in a boat anchored on the northeast side of the inlet nearby got a half-dozen snook and the same number of reds. They kept two slot-sized snook to eat, but the reds were way too big to keep.
Miraculously, no one seemed to be pestered by jacks or ladyfish.
He said sometimes during the mullet run, huge redfish will cartwheel on the surface, behaving like snook and tarpon chasing bait. But none of that aberrant redfish behavior was evident Friday.
KC, who fishes from a small boat, is hoping some of the massive schools of mullet will make a right turn at Sebastian Inlet and head into the Indian River Lagoon, where waters are calmer than in the ocean. However, recent heavy rainfall has dampened that prospect.
“I think the mullet run will go into November,”KC said.
“Whether the mullet will come in is a question because of all the fresh water in the lagoon.”
Exactly when massive schools of bait will appear along South Florida beaches can be hard to pinpoint. But He recommends anglers cruise up A1A in their cars and look for huge dark spots in the water a couple of hundred yards long with pelicans and terns diving on them.
“It’s happy bait time,” he says in one of his popular You Tube videos. “Right on the beach.”