The mullet are in! David would say excitably as he rushed into the house after doing his first day of holiday orienteering. See mullet at Point Lookout Stradbroke Island were not always in, but on occasions, our annual holidays coincided with the migratory movements of great schools of a fish technically known as Mugil cephalus, but simply known to Straddie fisherman as mullet. They would school together for protection and move slowly northward as a rolling pack from Main Beach around the point and then hug the shallows along the northern beaches of First and Second Cylinder. Now from my earliest encounter with them, I recon that these fish did not play entirely fair. See, they had no interest in our tasty fleshy baits cleverly threaded onto our sharp shinny hooks cause they ate plants for a living, and it was so jolly hard to find an interesting plant to put as bait on the end of your hook. So, we all just stood there powerless on the rocks, and watched four week supply of breakfast lunch and dinner roll slowly past our tempting offers, without even the slightest tug on our fish trap lines the bastards! Well David was not the type of guy to let all this fish protein and nutrition pass by without some contest of a catch. So our first attempt at catching these illusive fish was devised at their starting point on Main Beach. It was here that we witnessed the mullet being temporarily standard on the sandbank after the passing of a crashing wave. Caught in just inches of receding waters they would vigorously made tracks for the safety of the deeper channel close to the beach. David saw a catching opportunity in this occurrence and issued instructions for me to return to the house and bring back the planned mullet catching equipment. Now I don’t know what those cool lifesavers on the headland thought of two boys running along the sandbank thrashing metal rakes at the dark shadows but I am sure there were lots of rolling back eyes and shaking heads. Well, Plan B was instigated soon after the exhausting and rather embarrassing failure of Plan A. David soon figured that if they were not going to take our hooks then perhaps our hooks could take them. So, David thought up the design as we trundled home with out garden fishing rakes slung over our shoulders. He visualized a devise where three huge shark hooks could be bound together with heavy metal wire and by strategically separating the points he could construct a three dimensional jag hook. So now as the schools drifted around from Main Beach and past the rocky fishing platforms near Camels Rock, we implemented Plan B. The most effective technique for this new strategy went something like this – Firstly cast the jag hook into the middle of the schooling fish. Secondly, before the hook with its accompanying weights sunk below the fish pack, lock the reel and jag the rod back over your head with all your might. Now, if no contact is made with a solid object then it is likely that you will soon be facing the opposite direction and winding your line in as you walk slowly across the rocks and up the beach until you are reunited once more with your jag hook. Meanwhile, it was hoped that your jag hook did not connect with any blissfully unaware beach strolling tourist. Well this method did produce some mixed results. See, if a jag was successful then it was usually into the side of the fish. Oh the constant disappointment of pulling in a 6 inch mullet with its high friction dynamics of a sideways landing that felt more like a 20lb mackerel on the line. Sometimes a seeming successful jag suddenly gave way and delivered only a surprised single eye looking down the hook at you and wondering what the heck had just happened. As it turned out we only had to wait for the migration to move around to 2nd Cylinder to ensure a successful catch and a good night’s feed. Well, waiting patiently on this beach were the crouching craggy professional fishermen with their row boat and net. As the ocean and surf turned from blue to black, the net fishermen sprung into action. Their full and thrashing net was dragged in from the ocean by a tractor at one end whilst being anchored by the mighty strength of the fisherman at the other. Us boys simply formed a semi-circle rearguard position behind the beach advancing net. There we shuffled along with hats and string bags at the ready, waiting to catch any escaping fish. These bewildered and often dazed vertebrates turned out to be so easy to catch after all, because they all came out from under the net and carried on just like stunned mullet.
