By Steve Waters

You know autumn has arrived in New England when the leaves turn different colors.

You know autumn has arrived in South Florida when tarpon turn cartwheels off the beach.

While people head north to catch the fall foliage, local anglers head to beaches, fishing piers and jettys to catch the annual fall mullet run, which happens in late September and October.

The mullet migration offers some of the best, most frenzied fishing of the year, as a variety of predator species show up to feast on the schools of mullet, which swim south before heading offshore to spawn.

Tom Greene of Lighthouse Point, who started fishing the mullet run more than 60 years ago, said that once the mullet arrive in South Florida, there are several good spots that anglers can fish if they don’t have a boat or a kayak.

“When the mullet get here, you can stand on the south jetty of Jupiter Inlet, and you get a tremendous amount of bait on that south side. They stack up there,” said Greene, one of the many fishing experts on the Nautical Ventures Weekly Fisherman radio show, which airs from 6-8 a.m. Saturday on WINZ 940-AM and live-streams on the Nautical Ventures Facebook page.

“You get there at daylight in the morning, you fish two or three hours and you go home. And the odds are, out of five days, three days that you were there, you will see large amounts of baitfish,” added Greene, who advised Weekly Fisherman co-host Joe Hector on getting his Extreme Kayak Fishing tournament series started (visit extremekayakfishingtournament.org).

“Boynton Inlet has always been great. Boca Inlet has been good the last 10 years, the north side and south side. Fish early morning at Deerfield Pier and Pompano Pier. The rocks south of Pompano Pier, early morning, late afternoon, snook stack up in there every single day.”

Fishing can also be excellent at Juno Pier, as well as along the beach north and south of the pier. That area features plenty of parking and very few restrictions on beach fishing unlike some cities where fishing is either prohibited or limited to certain times.

During the mullet run, tarpon and Spanish mackerel will crash into a mullet school, then they and other fish gobble up the stunned and maimed mullet. Bluefish and jacks will tear through a school and snook will lurk underneath and pick up the pieces. Sharks and ladyfish also get in on the fun. Meanwhile, pelicans and seagulls attack the mullet from above.

Having reliable sources who call you when the mullet show up is the best way to fish the run. You can also drive along State Road A1A and look for mullet schools, which appear as dark, amoeba-like blobs in the water. If you see fish jumping and birds diving, you know you’re on a good school.

Live mullet are the preferred bait, but Greene said a number of soft-plastic lures that imitate baitfish will catch their share of fish during the mullet run. One of his favorite lures is a Red Tail Hawk jig or something similar because they are heavy, they don’t tangle easily and they come in a variety of weights such as 1, 1½ and 2 ounces.

To cast your lure out to a mullet school, Greene recommended using a 6½- to 7½-foot fishing rod with 12- to 20-pound monofilament line or 30- to 40-pound braided line.

Some of the most fun fishing is when schools of bluefish and mackerel are terrorizing the mullet. All an angler needs to do is cast a lure just beyond or in front of a mullet school.

“Those bluefish will eat any MirrOlure, any surface bait,” Greene said. “Try not to go with one with too many hooks, or pinch the barbs shut. You’ve got to throw something you can cast a long way that won’t tangle in the weeds.”

Even if you don’t see a mullet school, Greene said to keep casting because you never know what gamefish are hanging around. For example, snook tend to lie in wait in the first trough off the beach, where they are ready to ambush anything that swims by.

“Especially with the snook, you want to cast right and left, not straight out, because most of the snook you catch are in the surf. They’re in that dropoff,” Greene said, adding that married couples can enjoy a day at the beach walking and casting or simply soaking up the sun.

“Let your wife lay on the beach and you go for a walk.”

That’s a South Florida autumn day at its best.

For more tips from Greene and other South Florida fishing experts, listen to The Nautical Ventures Weekly Fisherman radio show every Saturday morning from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. live on 940 WINZ, an iHeart station. You’ll learn where the fish are biting and how to catch them. If you can’t tune in live, the Weekly Fisherman radio podcasts are available through:

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