How to Throw a Cast Net for Mullet (Florida, 2026)

How-To · Bait & Tackle

During the mullet run there are two kinds of anglers on the beach: the ones throwing live bait into the blitz, and the ones watching them do it. The difference is almost never the rod. It is a ten-dollar skill with a hundred-dollar net.

A cast net is the only piece of gear that turns a wall of bait swimming past your feet into the thing on the end of your line. Here is which net to buy, how to open one properly, and the rules that apply before you throw it.

Mesh Size Is the Whole Decision

Everything else about a cast net is preference. Mesh is physics.

Mesh has to be small enough that your target bait cannot push its head through, because a fish that gets halfway through the mesh is gilled — stuck, injured, and usually dead before you can free it. But mesh also has to be big enough to sink fast, because a net that falls slowly lets the school swim out from under it.

Bait	Mesh	Why
Finger mullet	3/8″	Sinks quickly and holds a 4–6″ mullet without gilling it. The mullet-run standard.
Greenbacks, pilchards	1/4″	Smaller, softer baits push straight through 3/8″ mesh. See the live bait guide.
Larger mullet, menhaden	1/2″–5/8″	Fast sink rate for deeper water and bigger bait.

For radius, 8 to 10 feet covers almost all Florida beach and inlet work. A 12-footer covers more water but is genuinely hard to open until your technique is solid, and a badly thrown big net catches less than a well-thrown small one. Start at 8.

The Bait Buster mullet net in 3/8″ is the common answer for exactly this job — heavy lead line, mullet-appropriate mesh, built for repeated throws off the sand.

Lead weight matters more than people expect. Roughly 1–1.5 lb of lead per foot of radius is the working range. Too light and the net parachutes, the lead line closes slowly, and the bait escapes underneath. In current or deeper water, heavier always wins.

How to Throw It

There are half a dozen throwing styles and they all end in the same place: a flat circle hitting the water at once. This is the most commonly taught method and the easiest to learn without putting a net in your teeth.

1. Attach the hand line to your wrist. Every year someone throws a net and watches it sink. Do this first, every single time.
2. Coil the hand line into your throwing hand so it pays out cleanly rather than snagging halfway through the throw.
3. Take the yoke — the point where the braille lines gather — in the same hand, and let the net hang. Shake it out so nothing is tangled.
4. Split the net. Grab the lead line about halfway down and lay that section over your throwing forearm. You now hold roughly half the net’s weight on your arm and half hanging free.
5. Take a bite of the lead line in your free hand — some throwers use their teeth here; you do not need to, and you should not with a net that has been in salt and sand.
6. Load and release. Rotate away from the target, then throw across your body in one motion, opening your hands at the same instant and letting the net spin off your arm. The spin is what opens it.
7. Let it sink, then retrieve the hand line with a steady pull. The lead line purses along the bottom and closes the net into a bag.

Practise on grass in a yard before you practise on fish. Ten minutes on the lawn is worth an hour of spooking schools on the beach, and a net thrown badly at a pod of mullet does not get a second chance.

Reading the Water

Finding mullet is easier than catching most things: they announce themselves. Look for dark, moving patches just off the sand, nervous water where the surface texture changes, and individual fish skipping as something eats from below. Birds working a tight spot is the loudest signal there is.

Approach along the beach, not out into the water — wading toward a school pushes it out of range. Throw ahead of the direction they are moving, not at where they currently are.

Three Mistakes That Cost You the Morning

• Throwing at the middle of a pod. It scatters the school, ends the bite for that stretch of beach, and makes you unpopular with everyone fishing near you. Take bait off the edge and leave the school intact — the predators are keyed on it.
• Netting more than you can keep alive. Mullet burn oxygen fast. A dozen lively baits out-fish fifty dying ones, and the limit is 50 per person regardless.
• Retrieving too fast. Lifting before the lead line has pursed lets bait swim out under the skirt. Let it settle, then pull steadily.

Care and Storage

A cast net is the piece of gear most reliably destroyed by neglect. Salt crystals cut monofilament from the inside, and a net stored wet in a bucket will fail somewhere in its second season — usually mid-throw.

• Rinse in fresh water after every trip. Every trip.
• Dry it fully before storing, hung rather than balled up.
• Keep it out of sun when not in use — UV is what actually kills the mesh.
• Repair small holes immediately. A one-inch tear becomes a six-inch tear on the next throw.

Bottom Line

Buy 3/8″ mesh at 8–10 feet, attach the hand line before every throw, practise on grass, and net the edge of the school rather than the middle. That covers finger mullet during the run and most Florida bait work the rest of the year.

Next: the 2026 mullet run guide for when and where the blitz happens, the live bait guide for keeping what you catch alive, and the surf fishing guide if you are working the beach on foot.

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links. If you buy through one we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, Florida’s Best Fishing earns from qualifying purchases. Gear is recommended on published specifications and long-run owner feedback for this specific job — see how we research. Regulations verified against FWC on August 16, 2026; always confirm at MyFWC.com before you keep a fish.