Autumn is arriving in South Florida, as anglers prepare for the fall mullet run

You know autumn has arrived in New England when the leaves turn different colors.

You know autumn has arrived in South Florida when tarpon turn cartwheels off the beach.

While many locals head north to catch the fall foliage, anglers from Miami to Stuart head to beaches, fishing piers and jettys, as well as offshore in powerboats and kayaks, to catch the annual fall mullet run, which usually starts in Martin County in mid-September and really gets going in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties in October.

The mullet migration offers some of the best, most frenzied fishing of the year, as a variety of predator species show up to feast on the schools of mullet, which swim south along the beaches before heading offshore to spawn.

Sometimes mullet schools are there when you arrive and never leave. Sometimes the baitfish are there and gone. And sometimes you have to wait for hours for them to show up. But when they do, they’ll quickly make the long wait worthwhile.

Fishing the mullet run works with lures or live or dead mullet. A 5/8ths-ounce Krocodile spoon is highly effective for surf fishing. Jigs, topwater plugs and soft-plastic baitfish imitations also work. In canals and rivers, it’s hard to beat a DOA shrimp or a hard jerkbait that imitates a mullet.

During the mullet run, tarpon and Spanish mackerel will crash into a mullet school, then they and other fish gobble up the stunned and maimed mullet. Bluefish and jack crevalle will tear through a school and snook will lurk underneath and pick up the pieces. Sharks and ladyfish also get in on the fun. Meanwhile, pelicans and seagulls attack the mullet from above, which makes locating a mullet school easy.

Tom Greene of Lighthouse Point, who started fishing the mullet run more than 60 years ago when he worked at Boca Tackle in Boca Raton, recommended using a 6½- to 7½-foot fishing rod with 12- to 20-pound monofilament line or 30- to 40-pound braided line whether you fish from the beach with lures or mullet.

Greene was a teenager when he pedaled his bicycle to a pavilion at the end of Palmetto Park Road on a Sunday morning. He was going to be in church later, so he left the trousers that he was going to change into with his bike, leaving his wallet in a pocket.

Casting live mullet that he’d snagged with his fishing rod, he caught several small jacks off the beach. Then he hooked a fish that he’ll never forget.

“That fish ran out and almost took all the line off my reel,” said Greene, who followed the big fish along the beach to the north jetty of Boca Inlet. “When I got to the inlet, I wasn’t about to let that fish cut me off. My rod had a cork handle and I put that in my mouth. Although the tide was ripping out and sharks were swimming through the inlet – you could see their fins -- I swam to the south jetty, then I fought the fish all the way to Deerfield Pier.”

Greene landed the fish, which turned out to be a huge jack, after a three-hour fight. He got a ride to the tackle store, where the fish weighed 43.5 pounds. Then he got a ride to the beach to get his bicycle, where the police were looking for him.

The incoming tide had swept over his bicycle and took his pants out to sea. A swimmer found the pants floating in the ocean, discovered the wallet and assumed young Tom Greene had fallen overboard offshore.

“One of the cops said, ‘Tom what are you doing here? We heard you were lost in the ocean,’ ” Greene said. “Then I had to call my mother. That was the scariest thing, but fortunately nobody had called her to say I was missing.”

Knowing where and when the mullet are running is essential. Having reliable sources – emphasis on reliable -- saves time and gas money. I had a friend who’d call to say the mullet were running off Jupiter. When we’d arrive and not see any mullet, I’d learn that the mullet were there the previous afternoon.

After hanging out for hours in the hopes that a new school would show up, we headed home, driving south along the beach. Amazingly, we spotted a mullet school, parked and hiked down to the surf with our tackle. Already there, catching bluefish, were several of my friend’s buddies, who all said they were just about to call him.