Mullet Snatching and Summer

Well, I've almost made it. I'm currently halfway through exam week of my toughest college semester yet (and hopefully ever). Two more exams and I'm home free. I'm having a relatively hard time focusing on studying as I can't seem to get my mind off of the upcoming fishing trips.

Summer is, by far, my favorite time of the year. Even though there's almost no hunting to be done, the amount of fun I get out of fishing during summer makes up for it. One of the things I'm -really- looking forward to is getting to go mullet snatching again. Just like it sounds, snatching mullet just consists of throwing a weighted treble hook through a school of mullet and foul hooking one. Obviously, the school needs to be pretty thick and the sharper and narrower the hook, the better. Last summer wasn't great for snatching mullet. I think it had something to do with the hard freeze we had. I heard reports two winters ago that there were frozen mullet washing up on shore. Hopefully this summer they'll have bounced back a bit. Hooking and fighting a mullet might not sound like much fun, but these fish fight surprisingly hard. Enough to rip out some drag actually. And really, a bunch of fried mullet at a fish fry is tough to beat.

I had my best luck snatching mullet the summer before last. My dad and I waited until high tide, and then waded out to an area near Pensacola to try our luck. The mullet were schooled up in the hundreds and we started casting across the schools in hopes of snatching one. If I had landed every one that I hit with the hook, I wouldn't have been able to carry the stringer. After every hit, I'd retrieve my hook to find a clear/silver mullet scale. I kept every scale and counted them at the end of the trip. Over the course of a few hours, I hit 68 mullet by myself and my dad had similar results. Luckily, we did manage to land a few and had a nice fish fry afterwards.

Now I'd just like another repeat of that summer. I (finally) got a call about a possible job near Ft. Walton beach studying beach mice. Due to the logistic nightmare of commuting from Pensacola and only being able to work part time, it's looking like I may be camping on the beach for a few days at a time this summer if I get the job. If I'm lucky, I'll just have to bring a surf rod and see what I can't catch while not working. Once it's set in stone, I'll be good to go.

Kayak fishing tournament is a week and a half away. Still debating about fishing the oil rigs in Alabama for King Mackerel. Depends on the weather, my (hopeful) job, and how daring I'm feeling the night before.