NEIL Shelton, the publican of the Nelson Hotel in southwest Victoria, reports that mulloway have been plentiful in the Glenelg River.
"Most of those caught weigh up to 7kg but occasionally one goes to 9kg," Neil said.
The mulloway have been in schools ranging from the estuary below the Highway Bridge to Princess Margaret Rose Caves, several kilometres upstream.
Most have been caught trolling live mullet, but lures have also attracted a few strikes.
Last week, more mulloway news emerged, this time from Bob McPherson at Portland, who said boat anglers had caught mulloway off Meretimo, and beach anglers were catching them from Snapper Point to the Fitzroy River.
The fish weren't enormous and again most would struggle to pull the scales past 8kg.
The biggest mulloway I know of are coming from Western Port.
Brendan Wing and Gawaine Blake on Think Big Charters have managed to snag several large mulloway, including three that weighed 18kg to 25kg.
The popular mulloway area in this bay is the Mosquito Channel that runs along the east side of French Island.
One place I know for sure that I won't hear of mulloway being caught is in the Yarra River in Melbourne.
This isn't because anglers won't be hooking mulloway.
Rather, it is because those who do so will keep the news to themselves, which is as it should be.
Mulloway anglers put in long hours to crack the system, and when they reap reward for that effort they like to savour it without the intrusion of other anglers swarming over their spots.
Many anglers attempt to establish a connection or link between the fish caught and nature.
Some standard such as moon phase, tide or even wind, is used to predict fish movements.
So it is with mulloway, but even then the fish do not always co-operate; they seem to have no sense of calendar days, Gregorian or solar.
This fish is a puzzle for most of us.
When Winston Churchill described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" he just as easily could have been referring to mulloway.
Mulloway can be caught day or night and will take live bait, strip baits, lures and even flies.
This fish is caught in three basic areas: estuaries, surf beaches and over bay or inshore reef systems.
These fish enter estuaries in search of food, which can be shrimp, crabs or small fish such as flounder, mullet and salmon.
They work their way up river as far as the tidal influence allows and it pays to remember that mulloway can swim in shallow waters.
When the estuary has had a good flush of fresh water, and the flood tide is strong, you can often distinguish a demarcation where the fresh and salt meet.
It is not unusual to find mulloway close to this demarcation, or swimming through it.
In the surf, anglers differ on the best time or tide to fish.
Many favour low tides when gutters are more easily reached by casting. Others prefer to work the high tides.
Either way, anglers would do well to remember that mulloway have a tail shaped like a broad paddle and this allows them to swim in turbulent, shallow water that most fish steer away from.
In bays and offshore, anglers fishing for snapper near reef systems have made many captures.
Methods
When mulloway are under 5-6kg they are called soapies.
These fish can be caught on 3-5kg outfits, provided your gear is in good shape.
Most anglers chase fish this size with lures such as soft plastics, small minnows and vibes.
Dedicated mulloway anglers seeking big fish will start with 10kg outfits and go up from there. In this case, you should have at least 300m of line on the spool.
This species has an array of small, sharp teeth, so trace material is important.
Use 10-15kg monofilament leader on the light outfits and 24kg breaking strain leader on the heavy tackle.
Hook size should suit bait size and most anglers start at about 4/0 in a Suicide pattern and fish up to a 6/0.
Live baiting is popular.
Popular live baits include salmon, mullet and tailor, and these are fished either under a float or off the bottom on a running paternoster rig.
In the Glenelg River, slow trolling live bait is effective.
The key factor with dead bait is to ensure it is fresh that day.
Mulloway are as pernickety as bream and anything less than fresh will usually be ignored.
Choice baits include squid, fish fillets and pilchards, especially when used in conjunction with a pilchard berley trail.
In South Australia, salmon guts are a favourite. The problem, though, is keeping the salmon guts on long enough, as the crabs and pickers make short work of soft baits.
A way to overcome the pickers is to employ the hosiery-sock Bait Protection System (www.smhanglingsolutions.com) or the single-strand elastic sold as Bait-Mate.
