Fishing the Northeast Mullet Run – On The Water

Trudging west through sugary sand, I clamored to the top of a jetty and hopscotched my way to the tip. Whitecaps covered a roiled Nantucket Sound as a stiff, 12-knot southwest wind sprayed crashing waves into my face, even on my elevated rock perch. My pencil popper soared toward an ominous gray horizon as the rising sun battled the clouds for its position in the sky. My second cast sent a group of small, silvery, cylindrical baitfish leaping from the waves. “Wow, they’re here,” I thought, as the water erupted behind the Tsunami Talkin’ Popper XD. The plug got smacked so hard, it launched two feet straight into the air. My jaw dropped as I picked up slack, the plug popped straight up again, and then again. Finally, within 5 feet of the base of the jetty, a teen-sized striper lunged for the popper with its mouth agape and dorsal fully exposed. 

This time, the fish connected, then turned on a dime and took a drag-sizzling run toward an abandoned mooring as sunlight burned through the wall of clouds. I laughed maniacally at the aggression exhibited by that bass. Little did I know that nearly every cast thereafter would send mullet flying and leave stripers competing for the topwater plugs. Lucky for the bass (and for Ryan and me), there were enough mullet around to keep them well fed for almost a week. 

Where I grew up on the western end of Long Island, mullet runs have grown sparse over the past 10 years. I knew of Northeast mullet runs through books, photos, and tackle-shop lore spoken by the old salts who mumbled over 7-11 coffee each morning as they reminisced about mullet-fueled feeds in the 70s. To this day, an annual mullet run creates what some anglers consider the best beach bite of the fall, albeit a short-lived one.

The Northeast Mullet Run

Striped mullet have a global distribution between the latitudes of 42 degrees north and 42 degrees south. In parts of their range, they grow larger than 10 pounds, but the fish encountered by striped bass anglers are generally 4- to 6-inch “finger” mullet. These are like Mike and Ikes for big bass and blues. Occasionally, larger mullet, the 8- to 12-inchers once called “corn cobs” by the anglers of yesteryear, appear in the Northeast. On The Water Editor Jimmy Fee snagged a sizable mullet while tautog fishing from shore last October, reinforcing McKay’s report of larger mullet running the inlets. 

Striped mullet spawn offshore during the coldest months of the year before returning to the comfort of brackish waters and estuaries in the spring, where they mature before repeating the spawning cycle. Ryan and I must have caught them on their way out the door, heading for those offshore spawning grounds.

We discovered that on an ebb tide under the right wind conditions, there was a confluence of currents between two inlets over a vast sand flat. Mullet were being washed right over the flat, where wolf packs of southbound schoolie to over-slot stripers were waiting for some fast food as they pressed through Nantucket Sound. The result was a collision for the logbooks.

Timing the Mullet Run

Recently, as I reviewed my fishing-log entries of last fall’s mullet run, I wondered where else on the coast mullet had made a showing, and for how long.  Would this be a recurring event on Cape Cod? I needed insight from other anglers to help paint a bigger picture of the Northeast mullet run in recent years. 

Rhode Island

First things first, I wanted to know when our neighboring surfcasters in Rhode Island expect mullet. Happy to oblige, Dennis Zambrotta told me, “I generally start seeing them in August in the few local salt ponds we have, especially in the evenings when I walk my dog. Small pods of mullet cause wakes in the shallow areas of the pond, and I watch them all August into September. As soon as I don’t see them on my walks, I know they are on the move.” 

According to Zambrotta, the fish measure 3 to 6 inches long, and run oceanfront beaches and rock ledges from mid-September until the first week or two of October. But even in Rhode Island, recent mullet runs have not been as strong as they once were. Zambrotta described mullet runs from 2017 to 2023 as inconsistent. “Some seasons I see lots of them, some seasons I never see them. Some seasons the run lasts a week, some seasons the run lasts up to two weeks; it’s very rare for them to last any longer locally,” he noted. He added that even when he doesn’t see mullet, it doesn’t mean they’re not present; sometimes, early autumn surf conditions can be flat-out dangerous, and overly rough surf hinders visibility, which is crucial to spotting mullet. “I’ve found the big wild card for timing mullet runs to be weather systems like tropical storms and hurricanes,” said Zambrotta. “An ill-timed tropical system can really screw up a good mullet run with unfishable surf. Some of these systems can last an entire week and wipe out the entire event.” 

Long Island

Jake Hardy, an accomplished surfcaster and fly fisherman on the west end of Long Island, is one of those Instagram buddies I’ve never had the pleasure of fishing with, but for several years, we have bounced ideas off each other. According to Hardy, the window for a mullet run on the west end of Long Island is tight, but if it lines up, it is usually the highlight of his striper season. 

By the end of September, Hardy says, 4- to 5-inch mullet gather around the backsides of inlets before they exit the bays. The run that follows typically lasts only through the first moon of October, but some years, surfcasters are lucky enough to see a few waves of 8- to 10-inch mullet in the middle of the month. “I have no idea where those larger mullet come from,” Hardy said. “I’ve never seen them in the western or eastern bays, but if their presence aligns with a moon, a storm, or there are big bass in the area, it’s a fishing emergency.” 

On the other end of the island, John Papciak—a surfcaster, writer, and photographer based in Montauk—echoed the words of Hardy. “We generally see individual fish in the 3- to 5-inch range in the early fall,” Papciak said. “But the mullet run is not like a sand-eel bite. Mullet can leave an inlet and the best of it will be over in a week.” 

Papciak, like Hardy, says his logs indicate that mullet can be found staging behind inlets in late August. When weakfish were around in greater numbers, he targeted the tiderunners feeding on mullet as they bunched up in the backwaters. “Now, we usually see mullet leaving the bay and traveling down the beach by the first week of September,” Papciak said. However, keep one eye on the forecast, he warned, because the first nor’easter of the season is what ignites the bite.

Low barometric pressure and dropping air temperatures cue the exodus of mullet from the bays. When it comes to timing your surf outings, Papciak says there are three factors of utmost importance: an abundance of mullet, a significant school or presence of predatory gamefish, and rough water. If the stars align, a good topwater bite is nearly guaranteed. 

“I’ve seen countless days on the beach when schools of mullet swam by unmolested, and I’ve seen other days when only a few gamefish were following a school of mullet, and it was almost impossible to hook up with an artificial,” Papciak said.  He admitted that mullet runs have been sporadic since the late 2010s, and Brandon Sausele, a young yet accomplished Montauk surfcaster, reinforced that notion. 

“The last very good mullet bite up front in Montauk was in early October of 2016, with fish from 30 to 40 pounds-plus being taken every morning at first light on the north side,” said Sausele. “It lasted for over a week through hard northeast winds, and it wasn’t entirely a mullet bite, but there were mullet mixed in,” he continued. 

When the conditions align, mullet blitzes bring epic days of fishing for striped bass, bluefish, and more to east end anglers. “I’ve even encountered false albacore chasing mullet in the surf!” said Papciak.

New Jersey

John Papciak noted that upon exiting Long Island’s south-facing bays, mullet are always moving west, which is why Jake Hardy describes the mullet run occurring slightly later in September than it does for Papciak on Long Island’s east end. As a result, schools of striped mullet that survived the gauntlet of inlets from Montauk to Breezy Point will swim almost directly into the beaches of northern New Jersey. 

Mike Gleason, co-owner of TAK Waterman in Long Branch, reinforced the importance of mullet presence as the fall run ramps up. “Our mullet tend to show up locally in late September or early October on the ocean side, and they’re typically in the 4- to 6-inch range,” Gleason said. “It all happens right before we get a big push of peanut bunker, which gives our resident bass a few solid meals to kickstart the fall and get them feeding.” 

Nick Honachefsky, writer, surfcaster, and TV host, agreed that, historically, the mullet run has been the “kickoff” to the fall run. Around the first full moon after Labor Day, he says, mullet begin to exit the backwaters and push into the surf, which usually coincides with those first couple weeks of crisp autumn air in the mornings and evenings. 

“The largest waves of them tend to show up between the second and third week of September,” said Honachefsky. “When water temperatures drop into the mid to low 60s, those mullet are triggered to leave the bays.” 

Much as Zambrotta, Gleason, Hardy, and Papciak suggested, Honachefsky describes the most common size as 3 to 5 inches long, with some 6- to 8-inch corncob mullet in the mix as the run progresses.

In what was a common theme throughout the Northeast, Honachefsky said the Jersey mullet runs of today are not what they used to be. “Old-school mullet runs were thick and sustained, but from 2017 to 2023, it’s been scrappy, with maybe two of those years having decent runs,” he said.  “Nowadays, the run consists of a couple weeks spent working sporadic pods of mullet in mid- to late September. However, the waters are usually still too warm for stripers when the mullet are pushed into the surf,” Honachefsky continued, noting that if there are schools of bluefish around, it can lead to some intense topwater fishing. 

From Rhode Island to New Jersey, ocean-side mullet signify the start of the fall run. They’re the first forage fish Dennis Zambrotta seeks out front once he loses sight of them in the Rhode Island salt ponds, and they set the stage for the fall run along the Jersey shore before peanut bunker steal the show. 

Regardless of their spotty nature or location on the striper coast, it’s evident that 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. 

Intercepting Mullet

Knowing when the mullet run will happen in your area is only one piece of the puzzle. The next piece involves fishing likely locations where they can be easily intercepted or ambushed by striped bass, bluefish, and weakfish.

“I look for mullet in areas where they congregate to cross open water. In my opinion, on the beaches, it’s more productive to get ahead of a big school of mullet than attempting to stay with them, especially on the west end of Long Island. Even if fish are blitzing along the beach, it’ll only get better as mullet pass by more pronounced structure.” -Jake Hardy

“I recommend fishing around inlets and their adjacent beaches, keeping in mind that on Long Island, mullet are always moving west.” -John Papciak

“I mainly target hard structure like jetties or pronounced sand structure like pipes and troughs in the surf where mullet get trapped.” -Mike Gleason 

“The best time to find bass on mullet schools is from false dawn until about an hour after sunrise because any bass in the area will feed during low-light hours after a crisp, overnight cool-down. Look for telltale signs, like nervous, rippling water close to the undertow, as mullet tend to stick very close to the beach. Bass will be working the schools from below.” -Nick Honachefsky

“Mullet like to hang shallow, sometimes right in the bubbleweed fields; they definitely avoid deeper water when predators are present, making them the perfect surfcaster forage. When they must go around hard structure like cliffs and rocky outcroppings, they tend to swim right along the edges.” -Dennis Zambrotta

Despite the fall run being a months-long migration, the mullet run within it is short-lived. For much of the coast, mullet are the opening act of the fall migration but, ultimately, their appearance reminds surf fishermen from Cape Cod to New Jersey that our striper season is finite and the end is growing near. So, the next time you consider skipping a blustery, rainy September outing on the beach when the mullet are running, think of good ol’ Ferris Bueller. Skip school, call in sick to work, because like Ferris said, “The mullet run moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Or something like that. 

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