The Sebastian Inlet Mullet Run, From the Boat

What the Run Is

Every fall, millions of mullet move south down this coast, along the beach and through the inlets into the lagoon. Everything that eats a mullet follows them. For about six weeks the biggest snook of the year, tarpon, jack crevalle, redfish and sharks are all feeding on the same bait in the same places, and some mornings the water looks like it is boiling.

Every report you will read about the mullet run at Sebastian Inlet is written from the jetty. That is a real fishery and a crowded one. This is the run from the boat, which is a different thing.

Where We Fish It

The jetty is one spot. From the boat we have the whole thing: the beachline north and south of the inlet where the schools move in the surf, the inlet itself on the moving tide, and the points and mangrove edges inside the lagoon where the bait gets pushed through a narrow lane and the fish sit on the downcurrent side and wait. That last pattern is the one producing right now — current funnels between two pieces of land, with trout, redfish and snook stacked on the deep edge.

Which of those we fish on a given morning depends on where the mullet are that day. That is the whole job during the run: find the bait, and the fish are underneath it. Being able to move is the advantage.

Bait and How We Fish It

Match what is in the water. Live mullet when the run is thick, greenies and pogies on the edges when the mullet are scattered. Free-lined or on a light jighead, cast to the edge of the school and let it swim. When a snook eats a live mullet in two feet of water there is no mistaking it.

Tarpon show up in the same schools. They are catch and release, always, and they are the fish people come back for. A sixty-pound tarpon on inshore tackle beside the boat is the picture of the trip.

Tides

Moving water. The run fishes best on the strongest tides either side of the new moon on 10 October and the full moon on 26 October, when the current pushes hardest through the inlet and across the points. If you have a choice of dates, those are the ones.

Trips That Fish the Run

• Half Day Inshore Fishing — Half Day, $600. The inlet, the beach and the lagoon edges, wherever the bait is.
• Night Fishing — Half Day, $600. Snook around the lights on the mullet, with the season open. Minimum age 16.
• Full Day Inshore / Nearshore — Full Day, $975. The run in the morning, the reefs after, and the red snapper season runs 9 to 22 October.

Species Guides

More on the fish that eat the run: snook, tarpon and redfish at Sebastian Inlet.

Snook season and slot from the FWC snook page; moon phases from public marine data; checked 2 October 2026. Regulations change — Captain Richard Ladrew fishes to the rules in force on the day.