Regardless of their spotty nature or location on the striper coast, mullet runs, in most cases, are set in motion by early autumn storms and dropping water temperatures in the bays where they reside. Come late August or early September, any surfcaster in his right mind will keep one eye on the 10-day forecast and another eye on the water’s edge, searching for those unmistakable striper snacks.
Finding mullet is half the battle, and surfcasters who adamantly fish artificials over live or cut bait also face the challenge of “matching the hatch”.
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Last October, following a slow night in the Outer Cape surf, my friend Ryan Henry called me with some interesting news. Ryan is originally from New Jersey and now works as a shellfish conservation officer in Barnstable, Massachusetts, so he regularly communicates with fellow town officials. When Ryan spoke with Tyler McKay, a Barnstable harbormaster, he heard of what appeared to be scattered schools of striped mullet moving between inlets on the south side of Cape Cod.
Ryan and I didn’t see mullet in great enough numbers to cast-net from the beach or boat, so we came armed with pencil poppers, bottleneck poppers, and soft-plastic paddletail swimbaits in the 4- to 6-inch range. However, to get a better idea of what I should keep in my plug bag for the 2024 mullet run, I asked surfcasters for their imitation baits of choice when mullet schools run thick.
For Jake Hardy, on the west end of Long Island, the mullet run is the perfect opportunity for a big bass on the fly. “You really can’t beat wading out on a bar and casting down a trough for big, aggressive fish blowing up a Bulkhead deceiver on your fastest double-handed strip,” he said. There are times, though, when those stormy conditions hinder his ability to properly cast or present a fly. In such cases, Hardy relies on plugs he can “burn in”, or retrieve rapidly, and that hang higher in the water column, like the RM Smith Surf Strider or a Yo-Zuri Mag Dive. At night, Hardy says, when mullet are tight to the rocks like silversides, he throws 6- to 10-inch paddletails on light jigheads or wide-gap swimbait hooks.
In northern New Jersey, Mike Gleason’s favorite mullet-run lure is a discontinued minnow-style plug: the Mega Bait 110. Of course, the arsenal is limited, but Gleason says a slim-profile surface metal lip is the next plug he reaches for.
Since minnow plugs come in such a variety of styles, you can’t leave home without a few variations, and that holds true for Nick Honachefsky. “My go-to lures are Bomber plugs, Yo-Zuri Mag Darters, and Daiwa SP Minnows because they mimic the mullet profile well,” he said. “The Island X Sidewinder, or any walk-the-dog-style spook or topwater stickbait, is also a solid profile to toss out there,” he continued.
Sometimes, the best thing a surfcaster can do is keep things simple and stick to confidence lures, like John Papciak does in the Montauk. “A swimming plug like a 7-inch Cotton Cordell Red Fin or an Atom Junior can draw very exciting surface strikes. I slowly retrieve the lure across the surface to create that V-wake.”
Brandon Sausele, another Montauk surfcaster, agreed, stating that his go-to mullet lure is a blue metal lip like an Atom Junior or a blue Super Strike Zig Zag. Of course, there are times when a Red Fin or Atom Junior can’t reach the action, and a plug capable of casting long distances is necessary.
“When trying to reach a bar, a 2- to 3-ounce pencil popper or a Super Strike Little Neck Popper will do fine,” Papciak said. And, when that first nor’easter rolls in, bringing big waves and white water, Papciak resorts to throwing 2- or 3-ounce white bucktails for their ability to punch through the wind and resist tumbling in rough surf.
In Rhode Island, Zambrotta takes a different approach. “In daytime with flat water conditions, if any bass are on the mullet, they are tough to fool,” he said. “Poppers work occasionally, but light jigheads with soft-plastic paddletails, like the ones from Gravity Tackle, are dead ringers for mullet.” Zambrotta said that he uses soft plastics day or night, but when it’s calm enough, he also throws C10 Redfins and small, metal-lipped swimmers to generate a V-wake.
Last October on the Cape, my surf bag contained two 1-ounce Mag Darters, two sizes and colors of Tsunami Talkin’ Poppers, two floating Super Strike Little Neck Poppers, and two SP Minnows without rear hooks. I also filled my bucktail sleeves with an array of white bucktail jigs in ¼-ounce increments from ½ ounce to 2 ounces, and stuffed three 6-inch Big Bait paddletails into the side pouches with a couple of ¼-ounce jigheads and zip ties.
For five consecutive days, I ventured out to that same sand flat before sunrise, and picked off stripers on anything that produced a splashy commotion or had a kicking tail. It was some of the most exciting and lively surf fishing I’ve ever experienced. As Halloween approached, my case of bass thumb had a chance to heal as mullet schools thinned out, and the air temperature dropped along with the average size of the bass. Stripers ceased hitting topwaters, then they lost their taste for soft plastics, and on the sixth day, all signs of life vanished.
Mullet provide fast-paced surf fishing while they’re around, but an ill-timed storm or extreme change in temperature can put the bite to bed as quickly as it started. Keep your eyes on the water and make the most of the run within the fall run.
