The Mullet Run

The Mullet Run Is My Favorite Time of Year

If you ask me what my favorite time of year is to fish in Northeast Florida, I’m probably going to tell you the mullet run.

Not because it’s easy. Honestly, it usually isn’t.

It’s because every morning feels like you’re about to stumble into something incredible.

You leave the dock before daylight, ease through the inlet, and start running the beach. Some mornings it’s dead quiet. Other mornings, you don’t make it a mile before you see birds picking, mullet showering across the surface, or a tarpon roll that makes you grab the push throttle a little tighter.

That’s what keeps me coming back.

The Mullet Are the Story

Everybody talks about tarpon this time of year, but the real story is the bait.

When those schools of mullet start sliding down our beaches, everything changes.

Tarpon know it.

Jacks know it.

Bull reds know it.

Sharks definitely know it.

The ocean goes from feeling empty to feeling alive almost overnight.

I’ve seen mornings where it looked like someone poured black paint into the surf

because there were so many mullet packed together. You don’t forget sights like that.

The Biggest Mistake I See

One thing I’ve learned is that not every school of mullet is worth stopping on.

If you’ve spent enough mornings on the beach, you start noticing the little things.

“Is the bait nervous?”

“Is it packed up tight?”

“Are birds staying with it?”

“Is the water clean enough that predators can hunt?”

Sometimes I’ll idle right past a giant school because something doesn’t feel right. Then a mile later, I’ll stop on a much smaller pod because everything about it tells me fish are around.

That’s the part of guiding I love. It’s never just about finding bait. It’s about putting the whole puzzle together.

The Eat You’re Hoping For

There isn’t much that compares to watching a tarpon track down a fly in clear water or blowing your mullet clean out of the water with your cork trailing violently behind it.

You make the cast, strip a couple of times, or reel down hard trying to get the slack in and then everything slows down for a second.

Until it doesn’t.

One violent eat.

A jump that sends water everywhere.

Then complete chaos.

It never gets old. I don’t care how many times I’ve seen it.

The Fish Don’t Read Calendars

People ask me every year, “When does the mullet run start?”

I wish it were that simple.

Some years we have bait early.

Some years we’re waiting on it.

One tropical system can change everything. A few days of dirty water can push fish around. Then a good stretch of clean water shows up, and it feels like someone flipped a switch.

That’s fishing. Waiting and moving with the elements.

It’s why you’ll never hear me promise exactly what a certain day is going to look like. But I can promise that I’ll spend every day before your trip trying to figure out where the fish want to be—not where they were last week.

Why I Love It

The mullet run reminds me why I became a guide in the first place.

It’s not because every trip ends with a hero picture.

It’s because every morning feels like an opportunity to witness something wild.

Some days we find them immediately.

Some days we burn a lot of fuel looking.

And every once in a while, everything comes together. The bait is right, the water is clean, the fish show themselves, and for a few minutes you’re in the middle of something you’ll talk about for years.

We call them “National Geogrpahic moments…”

That’s the beauty of chasing tarpon during the mullet run.

It never gets old.