The best $500.00 I ever spent was for a used sit-on-top kayak fishing kayak.  I had purchased a nice, top-of-the-line kayak for my teen aged son the previous season.  He was having lots of fun with it chasing fish all over the shallowest portion of local bays and creeks.  I decided that I’d try to the same, but my aim was to be the rascally, elusive, frustrating striped mullet.  Thus began my quest of solo kayak mullet fishing.

On a recent afternoon, I felt the call of the mullet. The weather was a bit questionable, but aside from some light rain, there appeared to be no storms in the area, so I drove out to the Sun and Sand launch and paddled my red kayak to the far side of the harbor on flat water. The tide was dead low at .2. That depth leaves enough water to float a kayak in the shallowest portions of the bay, but not by much. I exited the kayak once arriving at the channel that I’d planned to fish, and tethered it by rope to the belt on my swimsuit. The light breeze kept the boat bobbing at the end of the tether some 25 feet in back of me; allowing me the required clearance to throw the net without any entanglement with the boat.

Near the center of the channel, the water was a little less than knee deep, and the bottom was fairly firm. The first surface boil of a mullet coming by happened almost immediately, and calculating the speed of the timing of the two boils that had broken the water, I launched my net beyond where I thought the third boil might break. The guess turned out to be correct. I love it when this happens: first cast of the day and success in pulling the trigger on a mullet that thought it was the smartest creature in the bay. In the murky water of the harbor, apparently the mullet can see you, even though you can’t see them. This ol’ boy knew I was there.  I was in his backyard.  Mullet will use all their fishy faculties to try to sneak, slip, or charge by you.

After pulling the net in, I reached for the kayak’s tether rope and yanked it. The kayak glided gracefully up to my side, and setting the net with my prize in the seat of the kayak, I extricated my subdued fishy quarry, slipped my fingers into its gills, and then reached behind the kayak seat to open the lid of a forty-eight quart cooler, setting the mullet inside on the layer of awaiting ice laying on the bottom. One…. nine more to go. I had decided ahead of time to catch ten fish on this trip in preparation for the weekend. It was a nice, big harbor mullet. In my estimation, probably a three-year old fish. Not as big as they get, but plenty big and much bigger than the fish that congregate on the exterior of the harbor, coming in and out of Ochlocknee Bay with the tides. Harbor mullet tend to stay in the harbor, rather than run in and out with the tides. By doing so, they gain more weight and can be several times bigger than the mullet that are caught for the dinner plate by commercial fishermen. 

My fishing platform of choice is a fourteen foot sit-on-top with multiple compartments and plenty of space behind the seat for the required coolers.  I fit my ride with a 48-quart cooler for the harvested fish, and a 20-quart cooler for lunch, drinks, snacks and spare ice.  At the front of the boat is a sealed compartment that will hold at least two cast nets, anchor, drybox, life jacket and the required coast guard whistle.  This beast even has compartments that I don’t use.  It’s roomy and still quite maneuverable.  It will ride in the bed of my pickup truck with minimal trouble.  And, most importantly, it will float in about three inches of water.

Fish number two was waiting around the bend. With tide going as low as a .2, most of the fish had moved out of the shallow channels and will wait there for the incoming tide.  The sand flats in front of the oyster bars are expansive and featureless. They are square mile after square mile of nothing but firm sandy bottom.  It seems the fish know that the tide is going low.  But, they probably do no know just how low it will ultimately go.  So, the majority of the mullet move out of the upper reaches of the harbor, and wait in the bay for the tide to turn.  I am targeting those who are either too lazy to move out, or not smart enough to get of the way of a determined mullet fisherman who is bent on trapping them in the shallows.  The smarter mullet know their business.  They move right on out with the water.

Because of the shallowness, there were not many fish in the channel at my disposal as I worked slowly up the creek.  I am always cautious when on the water, but when fishing by myself, even more so.  I deliberately move my feet slowly in a shuffle along the bottom, giving ample time for resident stingrays to sense my presence and move on.  It would be tough to be hit by a sting ray this far away from the boat landing while fishing alone.  

Once, while mullet fishing with my son, I was stung while carelessly handling my net without properly inspecting it upon retrieval.   I had dragged it back after a cast, and did not notice a small juvenile ray caught helplessly inside.  As I started the process of reloading, his long tail whipped about and caught me with his stinger behind my right knee.  I still sport an ugly little scar as a reminder of the incident.  The pain was worse than that of a hornet or yellow jacket.  Having never been hit by a ray before, I felt it best to call it a day after that incident, and head back to the launch.  Fortunately, aside from the memorable pain, I felt no side effects otherwise.  A ray wants nothing more than to get away from you. You just need to let them know you’re there.  It’s the feet-shuffling that sets off their alarms.  I am a big advocate, these days, of completely inspecting your net after retrieval.  On a day like this one, I’m also watching the skies because there is rain all around the area – but no thunder.  Lightning is a show-stopper. I am the tallest thing out here for square mile after square mile.

So, even though there was a dearth of fish, the conditions were in my favor:  shallow water, overcast skies, and a slight ripple caused by the breeze.  I felt like an African bushman, hunting his next meal as he stalks through the savannah underbrush; constantly checking the wind and listening for the slightest rustle in the undergrowth ahead. One hundred yards further up, the channel turns to the right and enters a man-made canal that was apparently dug out by dragline in the 1950’s. Those where the bad old days when a businessman or real estate developer could bring a piece or two of heavy equipment to a wetland and sculpt it to his own specifications. Of course, that cannot be done any more – not unless you are the mayor of New Orleans. Fifty years ago, somebody dug out a half-mile long channel up against the bank of the inside of the Alligator Harbor sand spit so the owners of the lots in that area could have access to the deeper water of the harbor, thus allowing them to have boat docks, and presumably increasing the value of their properties. The tidal action of the bay has slowly silted in the channel so that now, not much more than a jon boat can navigate the channel. The docks that hang out over the slough are in disrepair and look forlorn and useless. Several even look like they’d be dangerous to stand on.

But mullet love this little corner of the harbor. Access to the canal is through a tee where the man-made portion starts. So, my plan is to walk up the natural channel, then turn to the right and walk to the tee.  I’ll be forced from there to either go left or right. The only problem with the majority of this man-made canal is that it cannot be waded. It’s simply too full of leg-grabbing goo.  At the front portion, where the tee is located, the bottom is firm and sandy. But, wade 20 yards down the middle either to the left or to the right, and you will suddenly find yourself in an all-enveloping, chest deep quagmire.  It’s not that the gooey soup wants to suck you under or hold you in place, it’s just that the loose muck is all around you and feels so claustrophobic. It’s one thing to be up to your thighs in the thick mud out in the harbor proper, it’s quite another to be swimming in a goo in one of these backwaters where you cannot feel or touch the bottom. So, needless to say, I stay out of the channel and hang to the sides where the bottom is firm, but slippery.  The unintended consequence of the man-made channeling of this slough is a legacy of god-forsaken mire that is slowly filling up the channel.  It truly feels unnatural.

Besides being known to eat plant material, mullet, also eat the detritus and tiny organisms that thrive in the muck on the bottom of the bay. They are scavengers and opportunists – not unlike a host of other sea creatures. Even on the lowest of low tides, there will be some mullet lunkers that never leave this man-made channel. And, the channel is almost narrow enough to throw a cast net from one side to the other. So, parking the kayak nearby, I slowly work along the bank, now out the water completely, walking through the inches-deep exposed mud, careful not to slide from the channel’s edge into the water, where certain neck-deep mire awaits an unsuspecting mullet fisherman. I prefer to walk the side of the channel that is opposite of the docks. This way there are no impediments to my stalk. On the other side, one must either crawl under the docks, when walking along, must walk up the bank and over the dock (technically trespassing), or walk through the channel below the dock, in the water where the neck deep mire awaits. God help the unsuspecting Atlanta tourist who might have rented a house for the weekend, thrown a big drunken party, and then had some 20-something drunkard think that he/she would take a mid-night dip off the end of the dock in back of the house. In the ooze, their tourist body would likely never be found.

An unsuspecting mullet - that is, one that has no idea that he is being stalked by the Florida equivalent of an African bushman - will often laze near the surface in a backwater area like this. In doing so, when the top of the water is flat, when he starts moving he will make a very large wake, alerting a predator like me to his presence. A large fish makes a very big wake. There are lots and lots of very big wakes as I scan with squinted eye down the channel. Walking is difficult, so I take it nice and slow. Fish number two of the day boils just to my right. I’ve spooked him. I break the silence of the moment when my net hits the water with a loud kersplash! Now, the entire mullet community knows that I’m nearby. Collectively, they convulse, twitch, and jerk.  And, the water in the slough comes alive with fish breaking the top of the water. While they are not present in the thousands, there are likely hundreds of fish lining this man-made portion of the bay. I retrieve my net, and cast number two has produced fish number two. I walk back to the kayak, and deposit Mr. Mullet ever so tenderly in the cooler along side his still comrade. I scoot some of the ice up over them, burying them in the icy chamber that will be their home for a bit longer. I chuckle to myself with sick humor, thinking of the forty-eight quart cooler on the back of my kayak as an icy coffin for my subdued opponent.

Repeat … and repeat … what fun! Finally, I decide that I can’t stop with just ten fish. I am too far away from the boat launch to quit now.  I will just give away my surplus. People in my neck of the woods are always willing to take free mullet!

The final cast comes forty-five minutes later. The tide has turned and I can tell that water is beginning its slow march back into the upper reaches of the bay. The cooler has at least twenty fish inside. I’ve taken a break for a quick lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (a mullet-man’s standard fare). The weather is holding with only an occasional drop of rain. I fished for less than an hour and a half. Now, it is time to pack up the kayak and head back in.  I ease around to the mouth of the tee, thinking that fish might be returning into the bay’s upper reaches now that the tide has turned. Very quietly, leaving the kayak 10 yards in back of me, I stand on the edge of the channel, partially shielded from view by tall marsh grass, and peer through the grass at the water beyond looking for a disturbance that would signal the presence of a fish. Within a few seconds, the water moves within reach of my cast. Upon retrieval, the net comes alive with thrashing fish. There are five mullet.

More than satisfied with the day’s effort, I pack the fish in the mullet-morgue and settle into the kayak for the trip back to the launch. When the kayak exits the tee, and I get back into the natural channel, the water is less than 12 inches deep. The channel is alive with fish. They are everywhere. They boil, and jump and slap their tails in disgust at my presence. But, they seem to know that I’m no danger to them while in my kayak without a net in my hand. They wait until the boat is literally on top of them before launching their fishy protest. They want me out of their bay. They want me gone. On another day, I’ll catch you, Mr. Mullet. And, after I catch you, I’ll filet you and batter you, and drop you in a bucket of hot oil.  My buddies will slap me on the back a while later and tell me what a great guy I am as we settle in to a meal of fresh-cooked mullet, doughboys, and slaw and cheese grits.  I am the hunter, Mr. Mullet, you are the prey.