CRUSH

Non-Surf Related Shenanigans

If I needed a fishing guide that’s among the best there is at putting customers on the fish and showing them a great time, Capt. Glyn Austin’s name would be at the top of the list.

If I needed a no BS, straight forward answer on whether or not the mullet run has started, I would not even be dialing Glyn Austin’s number. Not after the shenanigans he’s been pulling!

The mullet have been here, just as thick as they are today, for damn nearly a month. I’ve been calling it on Spacefish since the moment I saw a bait pod so large that it would be ungodly if occurring any time of year other than during the fall mullet run. Meanwhile, Capt. Glyn Austin held firm in his denial of clear and plain evidence. Last Tuesday, I spent the day with him. It was a great day of fishing — landed two nice tarpon and an assortment of other fun-to-fight species. We even saw a lot of bait out there, but not enough to sway Glyn Austin from spending hours arguing that the mullet run hasn’t started yet. He was so strong in conviction he nearly won me over to the mullet-run-denial side.

Then, imagine my surprise when I saw his post about our trip the next day on instagram:

If you don’t want to squint your eyes to read what he captioned his IG post with, he called it a “typical mullet run kind of day.” WHAT GAME IS THIS GUY PLAYING? Then I just read his post in this week’s Spacefish forecast, and I’ve just got two words: THE AUDACITY!

Melb Beach Surf Fishing

Surf fishing in south Melbourne Beach was alright this week… If you’ve missed the action windows with super concentrated bait pods passing by the beach (mostly in the morning and late afternoon), surf fishing left something to be desired. Personally, I was so obsessed with trying to get good aerial mullet run footage from my drone, I set aside my rod at critical times, and ended up whiffing on both the film AND the fish… Screw the footage, this week, it’ll be all about the fish!

Apart from not getting into any snook or tarpon, we did catch a few ladyfish, which I haven’t seen much of on the beach in quite a while. I don’t even want to mention the catfish numbers, but yeah, they’ve made their presence known quite well, too. I think this is the first week all summer that I didn’t see any pompano, not even a schooly. As for the bait run, we’ve easily been able to cast net a variety of species from shore, including finger mullet, greenies, hornbelly’s, etc.

FishGum Sucks!

Sand fleas are still in that hard-to-come-by pattern. There’s short periods when you’ll be able to find some, like towards the backend of falling tide, but even then, they are not present in big numbers. I wouldn’t show up at the beach for bottom fishing without a backup bait. Speaking of backup baits — GUYS, I retract everything I said about FishGum. It’s the worst; it doesn’t work; it’s over-priced; FishBites are wayyyy better. I’m sorry, but I was so wrong about this horrible, no good, surf fishing product. Please stop buying it so I’m able to find it in stock again anywhere.

This week we’ve got some higher winds out of the N/E… The winds alone should be manageable but it’s concerning that we’ve already seen a consistent presence of sargassum patches over the past 4 or 5 days. Stronger winds of E influence on Wednesday and Thursday may drive a big mess more of sargassum seaweed — and some really challenging, potentially unpleasant, conditions — into the surf. Hopefully any negative repercussions will be short-lived.

Here’s a fun thought experiment I’ll leave everybody with today: if Capt. Glyn Austin goes to the beach and doesn’t immediately see gamefish smashing bait pods like it’s the 4th of July, is the mullet run OVER for everybody, or just for him?