Grey mullet (Chelon, Mugil, Liza sp.) — spearfishing in Morocco

01 Telling it apart

A torpedo-shaped silver-grey fish with a broad, flat head, a small mouth at the tip of a blunt snout, and thin dark lines running the length of the flank along the scale rows. Two short dorsal fins sit well apart; the first has four stiff spines.

The thicklip is told by its upper lip, which is deep, fleshy and warty, and by its overall dark grey back. The thinlip (Chelon ramada) has a thin lip and a small dark spot at the pectoral base. The flathead (Mugil cephalus) has a fatty eyelid covering most of the eye. The golden grey (Chelon auratus) has a gold blotch on the gill cover.

At distance every mullet reads the same: a grey cigar with a flat head, cruising near the surface in a loose school, turning as one.

02 Habitat

Coastal water of every kind: harbours, estuaries, lagoons, surf beaches and the white water over rock. Mullets graze algae and organic film off rock and mud, and they take the small animals in it, so they are wherever that film is thick — harbour walls, outfalls, river mouths, the wave-washed top of a reef.

The thicklip is the open-coast mullet, on rock and in the surge. The thinlip and flathead run far up estuaries and into fresh water. All of them come and go with the tide and the season.

They are near the surface most of the time, in the top three metres.

03 Where to find it in Morocco

Everywhere, on both seaboards. Very dense near estuaries and harbours; the Atlantic estuaries from Moulay Bousselham to the Souss hold large schools.

Mullet biology is well studied in Europe but not in Morocco. The maturity figure is Atlantic; the spawning window varies by species and by coast.

04 Spawning

It varies by species. The thicklip spawns in late winter and spring in the Atlantic; the flathead in late summer and autumn; the thinlip in autumn and winter.

Spawning schools gather along open coast and can be very large.

05 Behaviour

Mullets live in tight, mobile schools that react as a unit: one fish startles and the whole school is gone. The school’s cohesion is its defence, and the moment of panic is instant and collective.

They are not curious. A mullet does not come to inspect a diver; it tolerates one who is still and part of the background, and it feeds past him. Moving water lowers its guard: a school grazing in surge lets a diver much closer than the same school in a calm harbour.

A wounded mullet in a school does not spook the others for long; they regroup within minutes.

How you approach it

Ambush just below the surface in moving water, where the school loses its wariness. Hang at the edge of the white water and let the school graze past.
Aim at a single fish on the edge of the school, never the centre. The school is a wall of scales that absorbs a shaft and lands nothing.
Shoot slightly ahead: a mullet at the surface is moving, and the school turns the instant one fish is hit.
A short gun, 60 to 75 cm, is enough. The ranges are very short and a long gun is slow to swing in the surge.
Respect the distance rules in and around ports. Most mullet water is exactly where diving is restricted.

What people get wrong

01 That all mullets are one species. Five occur on this coast, with different lips, eyes and seasons; the legal size covers the whole family.
02 That a mullet is a dirty fish by nature. The species is clean; the water it is taken from decides. A surge mullet from open rock is a fine fish.
03 That a mullet is easy. It is easy to find and one of the hardest fish on the coast to hit cleanly.

Do not confuse it with

The species this one is taken for, and what tells them apart.

European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax — the same silver in the same water, but a big predatory mouth, a straighter back and two dorsals of equal size.
Salema, Sarpa salpa — a deeper, more oval fish with bright gold lines along the flank and a small mouth; grazes in schools over weed like a mullet.
Bogue, Boops boops — a slimmer, rounder fish with a large eye and gold lines, in open water rather than at the surface over rock.