Eating habit of the Mulloway/Jew

[teckee7]

I am interested to find out from those that have caught a Mulloway, what is the 'bite' indicator that a Mulloway has targeted your bait. Does the fish gulp the bait in one go or does it tend to play with it for a while, grabbing and dropping...

[nadders]

the bite indicator is constant solid hookups with circle hooks and then random hook pulls 9 out of 10 times

[paulymassy]

Teck,

When i have caught Mulloway in the Brisbane River they tend to gulp it all in one, thats what i have found anyway. In the Seaway at the Gold Coast it is a totally different story as when i have caught them there they have tended to play with the bait before the final take.

hope this helps.

[teckee7]

Yeah, Nadders I know about your stories..haha, dont worry mate you will catch that elusive fish yet.

Pauly - thanks buddy, cause fishing in the river I noticed and I have felt through the line, that the bait is being handled as though the fish grabs, plays with it a while and then takes it for a short run, and dropping it again. It does this a few times and I hooked up on big time but wasnt sure whether it was a jewie or some big arse pike eel as they seem to do the same thing (as I am using whole tailor or mullet as bait - around 25 to 30cm in size).

[nadders]

for a serious answer teck i think it depends more on the size of your bait etc, out of the bigger ones i have caught and seen caught, big baits like large mullet and butterflied tailor dont get hit quite so hard as smaller live herring etc

i had a live herring smashed at 100mph by a 90cm jew, and i had a metre+ jew toy with and take a slow and steadily increasing run on a 25cm pike

i guess with a smaller bait there is no real need to chew it down and play with it it can just be swallowed as is, whereas with big butterflied tailor and mullet baits they need to chomp it down a bit first

i think what was playing with your bait last night was an eel, all the jew ive seen caught dont just sit there basically motionless stuffing around with the bait, they take it on slow runs which pick up in pace around strike time. whatever you had last night was just sitting still for like 10 minutes lol

[shortie]

yep big bucket mouths hit hard, especially a live bait.

Can be picky on dead baits, i have had em run them let go. remember to have your hook exposed in this situation.

[yoyo]

Sitting still and not doing much....? Maybe it was a Collins Class submarine...?

[maxi]

ive had em hit and run, take 10 mts drop it . take 10 mts drop, then go like a freight train,

ive had em play for what seemed like an eternity hardly moving, then clamp down and go hard..

ive had nights when every live mullet i deployed came back dead and slashed from head to tail with no hook ups even running a treble stinger ..!!!!!

ive had em hit and run hard unstoppable .....

so i guess what im saying from my experience is they ( the real jewy ..."over 20 kg" ) can have an unpredictable "take" , which varies with the prevailing conditions of your own playground....

keep at it and you may crack the code ... good luck teckee7 ...

[sehrguht]

lol ^^^

the only jew i have seen caught was in the pine river and it just sat there until my mate started winding the line in to check it, then it took off