Dave Norman of Angling Adventures West Cork, found Thick lipped Mullet feeding in skinny water where they didn’t expect to find him…
Not knowing what flies they wanted (If any!) I started with various Shrimp and Apps Worm patterns on the point with two droppers, then one, but partly due to the weed I ended up reducing down to a single Flexi Worm presentation with a short 7ft / 11lb fluorocarbon leader, with my preferred indicator just beyond the midway point.
The takes were quite subtle, I easily hooked a dozen, got broken off a couple of times, had hook pulls and straightened hooks due to the weed building up on the leader, one just hooked just outside the mouth but three decent Thicks nailed fair and square! I could have carried on for a couple of hours more but decided to leave them in peace, still feeding hard…
Keys to success were – Recon (Finding them, and just as importantly finding them feeding), Stealth – Keeping ultra-low, Putting the brakes on as much as possible and not allowing the fight to go on too long in the light stringy weed that would build up with every passing second as the fish tried to career off in all directions, Playing the fish hard with a very high rod tip to reduce line in the water for the same reason (The weed) and to summarise, generally adapting to the situation in front of me.
What they like about the Flexiworm is a mystery to me, my personal theory for now is that it’s something red (Which we know they like) it has life like movement, and is slow sinking – so easily sucked up to be tested with that highly sensitive Mullet top lip, by which time an indication of what’s going on has been given to the vigilant fly Angler who has strip struck, set the hook… and it’s all too late !!
Hats off as always to the pioneers of this exciting and relatively new form of saltwater flyfishing!!
Go fishing…
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