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Believe it or not, the best fishing I ever witnessed was at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. It took place one blustery October day on a fishing pier.

The mullet migration had been in full swing for several weeks. Along with the battered baitfish, hungry predators were arriving from the north in droves.

I worked at the pier at the time, which gave me access to two large shrimp tanks. During the morning, a castnet-wielding friend had filled both to overflowing with several hundred silver mullet.

I can still remember the nor’easter and how shortly before noon, it began gaining momentum. By one or two that afternoon, it reached a level of screeching intensity that made lure casting for mackerel and bluefish impossible. The surf was rapidly being transformed into a maelstrom of seaweed-choked chocolate. I was ready to quit when I saw my friend approaching.

“Seen anything?”

I told him I hadn’t. But at that very moment, several monster tarpon rolled directly in front of us. We never believed anything could live in such froth. However, since we were less than a hundred feet from shore and only twice that from the bait tank, we decided to grab a pair of mullet and give it a try. The waves were crashing so loudly I could barely hear. Yet I had no problem seeing two giant holes open up the second our baits hit the water.

The rest is history. By midafternoon, several other friends who’d seen our cars decided to check out the action. Together, we promptly managed to use up all the live baits. It didn’t matter, since I was soon too tired to turn the reel handle.

One thing that sticks in my mind is how no one else was on the pier. Thanks to the weather, we had it all to ourselves. Since the mullet schools had stopped several hours earlier, the only palpable evidence of fish were the violent rushes of tarpon striking our baits.

All told, we managed to hook more than a hundred and drag at least a dozen all the way to the beach. One guy hooked two fish that re-defined our expectations. The second practically cleaned out a red 6/0 before breaking off with a resounding crack.

Pretty impressive stuff. Yet the whole event starts as a tiny trickle in a non-descript New England backwater. By the time the mullet migration reaches South Florida, it swells to a proportion that can only be described as epic. Few events in nature rival it in magnitude.

The endless schools are gone now, a victim of Man’s short-sightedness and greed. Yet even today, it’s still common to see several dozen tarpon surround a beleagured school before embarking on an orgy of unparalleled carnage.

Most anglers recognize that mullet inhabit shallow inshore waters. What we don’t realize is that with the advent of fall, these fish head for the ocean en masse.

While this pattern is evident throughout their range, it’s especially noticeable in Central Florida’s Indian River where mullet populations are the greatest. After gathering in the Intracoastal, some schools make an effort to exit the inlets and enter the ocean proper. Although this also occurs in the Gulf, from the fisherman’s point of view, the Atlantic migration is more significant.

Once the schools leave the inlet they begin a southerly migration. Although the majority stay close to the beach, it’s not unheard of to find mullet moving well offshore. Along the Atlantic coast, this southward movement is more pronounced when the wind’s in the northeast.

Where are these wandering mullet headed? As far as I can tell, it’s to Florida Bay where they disperse into the anonymity of the grassflats. Since individuals of all sizes participate in the migration, it hardly qualifies as some sort of rite of passage. So what makes some individuals swim southward while others stay behind? Maybe the need for genetic diversity, but I don’t know for sure.

For the tarpon angler’s viewpoint, Broward and Miami-Dade counties represent the geographical epicenter of the mullet run. The greatest venue for this type of fishing remains the surf and ocean piers of the Gold Coast. I still have fond memories of holding my reel out of the salt while splashing around in the waves.