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Professonal
Fly
Casting & Fishing Tuition
Tying
the Perfection Loop knot
French
to English Fisherman's Glossary
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Many anglers from all backgrounds whether
it be fly, lure or bait, have experienced those 'blank
days' or 'skunks'
when there are simply no fish about even though you have all of the
right gear, tactics and flies/lures. Now let's reverse this situation
imagining that you have just arrived at a body of water to see
hundreds possibly thousands of fish seemingly laughing at you because
you don't have the right gear, tactics, or flies. Well you're not
imagining it, it's real. Welcome to mullet fishing for the
uninitiated, and sometimes, the experienced angler as well.

Full-length view of the
gorgeous Golden Mullet. Notice the splash of gold on its gill cover giving
it its common name. This
fish was caught on a red variant of Sam's Breton
Crevette fly
Fishing for Golden-greys
Fishing for Golden-greys is different from
fishing for Mr. thickie lip grey in Brittany as you will need to fish
beach and estuary areas which are on the front line of tidal changes.
Unlike their thick-lipped cousins which can float around lazily in
very low flow water courses, golden-greys prefer more clearer flowing
water or beach areas with good wave flow in which to hunt their prey,
e.g. crustaceans like shrimps, as well as vegetable matter.

Rugby mad
Ben
Turner with a lovely harbour
golden-gray caught on fly tackle
Since 2006, Sam has created and improved on
his original Breton Crevette
flies (see sample below) to catch many of these previously-elusive
fish. The large Golden-grey Mullet pictured above was caught on an
red variant of the Breton Crevette fly. Armed with an 8 weight outfit
fitted with 8 weight floater with tapered leader and fluorocarbon
tippet (combined length of 10 to 15 feet), the mullet fly angler can
gain an advantage by wading beyond the wave-break area
into deeper water (if conditions allow). From this position cast
towards the beach on top of the breaking waves under which small
or large shoals of golden-greys are basking or hunting for their prey
meals. Golden-greys are skittish by nature, but it appears that they
are more wary of what is coming off the beach than what is already
beyond them in the deeper surf.
An alternative method is to 'dap' for big
GG mullet which are feeding on the surface while wading or quietly
from a small boat. For those of you who are familiar with fishing
Irish loughs or loch-style fishing, lightly dapping the fly is
a good way to target individual fish without making long casts. Make
sure that you have attached a long (12 to 15 ft), leader to your fly
line to which you attach as thin a diameter of fluorocarbon tippet as
you are confident to use. A long rod, e.g. 10 foot in length, is also
advantageous. Sight your mullet then cast your line where only the
tippet/leader lands near your fish with the fly landing even closer.
A fly can consist of a small shrimp, maggot, or piece
of seaweed. Once the fly has landed you can employ various
retrieves to get the to take including: simple figure-of-eight alone
or mixed with other types of strips, or one of my favourites,
sweeping the fly along as if you are going into a roll cast. If the
fish hits during this movement you can snap the rod forward to set
the hook, however, if you have enough tension on the line you can
simply fly your wrist and set the hook during the roll cast movement.
Keeping the rod tip high during this movement improves hook-ups as
you have less fly line in the water with which to unstick during the strike.

Olivier
(with Ned) holding a lovely GG mullet
caught while using the
'dapping' fly fishing method
Golden-greys are also know to take small spinners
especially when there is a large congregation of active feeding fish.
See pic below.

Ben Turner with a
specimen Golden-Grey caught
on with a small spinner
A word about tidal coefficients.
Instead of looking a tide heights, the French use a different
percentage system known as the tidal coefficient. By looking at this
number you can grasp immediately whether or not you have a short
(weak or neap) tide or long (strong or spring) tide. When you grab a
tide table from Sam or a local tackle shop look for tidal coefficient
ratings of below 40 for your target month. The lower
the better as it will bring out many more golden-greys and
concentrate them in higher number along the beach or estuary mouth.
As these shoals build in number the fish become less wary as they
roam the wave ripples for food.
From Sam's experience the golden-grey is
great for the fly rodder as they can be caught without resorting to
chumming an area. Conversely, like horse mackerel, golden-grey mullet
can be caught at night on the fly rod with some light chumming
consisting of fresh ground mackerel and bread. Good fishing!
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Sam's Breton Crevette
(size 6) fly in orange livery catches both sea bass and golden-grey
mullet. Preferably
downsize for mullet fishing |
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When you go fly fishing for sea bass in the
Brittany's beaches, especially in late Spring, Summer and Autumn, you
will inevitably find huge shoals of grey
and golden-grey mullet lurking about just sub-surface. In fact, its
always good to cast to a shoal of mullet as sea bass tend to swim
just below them in the breakers. You only have to surf the web or
read fishing magazines to realise that mullet fishing is gaining
popularity with new flies and tactics being introduced to entice
those hardened fly anglers to try catching these torpedoes with fins.

Sam with a
specimen Golden-grey mullet
which
was released.
Sam
later found out
that it was
eligible for consideration as an
IGFA
World Record--next
time then!

Full-length view of a
Thick-lipped Striped (Grey) Mullet.
This lovely
fish was caught by Ray Stonell on an
olive variant of Sam's Breton
Crevette flies
Well-laid casts followed by Figure-of-Eight
retrieves can sneak your fly into a shoal without spooking these wary
fish, but don't forget that they can also bang a fly when stripped
quickly across their nose. They key is getting your depth right so
you can keep your fly in the 'feeding zone'. Although bread crumb is
used to attract Grey mullet to feed, this is not necessarily true for
the Golden variety. Watch this space for loads more mullet-catching
details will be added at the end of Summer.

Overhead view of hundreds
of big thicklipped Grey Mullet lazily swimming
below the town weir
at Châteaulin during
the summer at high tide
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