How not to catch a mulloway

Have I, at some point in my life, crossed paths with a Mulloway in one way or another? This is a question which I regulary ask myself. Was there a Mulloway within the whole system tonight or did I brush a lure right past ones nose & a slight twitch at the wrong time spooked the fish. Was it a Mulloway that spooled me off corinella a few years back when our gear wasn't up to scratch. The answers to these questions I will never know. What I do know is the more I fish for them without luck the more my passion increases to catch this mysterious fish.

It's the mystique & prehistoric characteristics of Mulloway that grabs my attention. People dining on southbank on a Saturday night not knowing that they're are 40kg monsters lurking in the dirty polluted waters of the yarra river. For every 20kg dinosaur landed, i shudder to think the fish lost on tackle set up for bream and other smaller estuary fish. Tommorrow we will be targeting mulloway once again. As every trip, i honestly believe tommorrow will be the day. Will it be a little tweek made from our last journey or will it be every experience that will lead us to our most prized capture? Focusing on the processes not the end result is a little trick we learnt from our under 18's footy coach.

I consider myself the engineer of Mulloway fishing. I've been to uni, studied all the facts, but when I actually get on a real job site I'm out of my depth. I've read, talked to pros, heard the success stories. I have lures ranging from 140mm shallow diving minows to tiny little vibes. My knowledge on paper is great. I know there feeding patterns, I know they like to ambush from turbid water and shadows into clean water and artificial light. I know although ruthless hunters there strike rate on attacks is not that great. All this information that accounts for zero Mulloway. I feel the same as that engineer that rocks up to site in brand new work boots, pants still creased from being folded in a packet & a shiny brand new white helmet.

Have we been successful? Yes. Not by knowing how to catch them, but by knowing how not to. I know a packet of frozen squid from the petrol station will not end in the capture of a secret silver. I know that fishing corinella with 100m of 10 pd mono on ur spool & light leaders is also going to make life hard for yourself. The definition of insanity is making the same mistakes & expecting a different result. So we have been successful Mulloway fisherman by eliminating what doesn't catch Jew fish, & eventually there will be no more mistakes left to make and that shiny white helmet I wore on day one will be covered in dirt, scrathes and union stickers, all proving my experiences.