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Like many fly fisher folk I did my fishing apprenticeship using bait. One of my favourite baits was poddy mullet that abounded in Lake Illawarra just beyond our back fence. We caught these little fish in many ways but one of my favorites was with the help of one of those long oyster bottles that used to be around. A little bit of bread in the bottom would entice the mullet in and once in they couldn't turn around to get out. It was all over red rover. Anyway we used these little bait fish to target flathead and they loved them. This fly imitates the poddy mullet and is easy to fish. I like to dredge it with regular strips over sandy bottoms. Hits are generally pretty hard and can be from flathead hardly bigger than the fly right up to monster lizards.

Materials

Process

A	Starting just behind the eye of the hook wind the thread to the bend of the hook in tight touching turns. Understanding hooks Tie in a set of real eyes or dumbbell eyes around 5mm behind the eye of the hook. I think "Real Eyes" are the best type of eye because the sockets are convex and easy to paint. Tying in dumbbell eyes

B	Tie in a small bunch of eggshell polar fibre at the bend of the after stripping out the base fibbers. The polar fiber should extend beyond the hook about the same distance as the length of the hook shank. Managing synthetic fibrer Tie in a similar size bunch of olive polar fiber directly on top of the first. Tie in a length of powder puff wool or body chenille at the bend of the hook. Note: As I have carried out the various stages in this step of tying the mullet fly I have tied the butt ends of the tail material and the butt end of the body material along the hook shank to form an under-body. By doing this you add a little more volume to the body and reduce the number of wraps of body material you will have to take in order to build up the volume of the mullet fly body. If the under-body is uneven as a result of tying in the butt ends use a little dubbing or other light colored material fill in any ridges or gaps so that the under-body is a uniform cigar shape.

C	Wind the body material forward in touching turns all the way to the eyes and then around the eyes using figure of eight wraps being careful to stroke the body material fibers out of the way as you make each successive wrap of the body material. Tie the body material off at the eye of the hook and trim the excess. Whip finish, trim and varnish the thread.

D	With a sharp pair of scissors trim the body into a symmetrical mullet shape. Finally colour the top of the fly with olive permanent marker and paint the eyes up.

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