Geoff Thomas: Try out some mullet magic

Heta Conrad extracts another mullet from the net - one set yielded half a bin of fish. Photo / Supplied

"There's one," said Heta Conrad. "And another one and another."

The floats bobbled up and down and splashes punctuated the surface where fish were hitting the net. Then he carefully extracted the fat, silver fish from the netting, dropping them into a floating bin.

Heta has fished the waters of Parengarenga Harbour in the Far North for nearly 60 years and he knows where to set his net to intercept the mullet as they venture across the mud flats on the rising tide. These fat, silver fish come out of the smokehouse dripping fat and juices. When scaled and cut into chunks, pierced by a snapper hook and dropped into the channels in the harbour or cast from a surf beach, there is no better bait.

Heta's net yielded half a bin of mullet from the waist-deep water and, as the tide swept in to cover the shallow flats, mullet could be seen leaping high like a silver exclamation mark against the dark bush. He cruises the channels, watching for mullet leaping and splashing before deciding where to run the net, and it always works. For this is a rich harbour, one of the last waterways unspoiled by run-off from roads and grasslands. It is a paradise for the angler, where snapper and kingfish run in late summer, and huge trevally, flounder, rays and sharks abound. It supports a limited commercial fishery, with harvests strictly managed by local iwi, and access is also carefully managed.

But mullet are a universal fish. They can be caught in the Kaipara, Manukau, Kawhia and Aotea harbours in large numbers, and the lower Waikato River is another rich fishery.

They are also a universal species, found worldwide under various names such as flathead mullet, black mullet, mangrove mullet and striped mullet in the United States, Asia, the Mediterranean and Europe.

Mullet prefer tropical and semi-tropical temperatures and we are actually at the southern limit of their range, which ends at Cook Strait. But they can tolerate different levels of salinity and will travel up rivers for considerable distances, as far inland as the Karapiro Dam on the Waikato River and dams also create barriers to mullet on rivers such as the Colorado in Arizona.

Like their smaller cousins, the yellow-eyed mullet or common sprat, they have to return to the sea to spawn.

With small, toothless mouths, they feed by grazing on plants and sucking detritus and plant material from the seabed, but will also eat zooplankton and, occasionally, enterprising fly fishermen will cast a tiny nymph to them in the shallows in harbours.

As well as set nets, they can be caught in drag nets and one common method on west coast beaches such as Baylys or 90-Mile is to cruise the beach looking for the dark red-brown stain indicating plankton in the waves, then walk out with a net which is dragged in a semi-circle back to the sand.

Mullet are an important food fish in other countries and their salted and dried roe is prized in Asia and Europe. In Egypt when the fish is salted, dried and pickled, it is known as feseekh. Mullet are farmed in many parts of the world and on the coast of Florida and Alabama, where it is called striped mullet, is often a speciality in seafood restaurants. It is most popular fried but is also served smoked, baked and canned.

Mullet does not last well after being caught, keeping for about 72 hours on ice, after which it becomes nearly inedible, so the sooner it can be eaten after being caught, the better.

But keen snapper fishermen will scale and fillet their catch of fresh mullet and preserve it for bait. This is easily done by packing the fillets in ice cream containers, with layers of rock salt between the fillets. Done like this it will keep in a cool place without refrigeration and produces a tough, if smelly, bait.