On Saturday nights, groups of anglers regularly meet in different places around Melbourne’s largest rivers.
They can be found sitting on the banks of the Yarra – including under the bridges near the casino, with their rods at the ready – or on the Maribyrnong River.
With hungry eyes, they come to try to catch a giant, a fish so elusive that some claim it’s the hardest to catch.
The mulloway is their target. A large white fish that can grow over a metre long, and is so difficult to hook that it is known the silver ghost.
And they are part of what other anglers call a secret club. “It’s the mafia,” one angler says, and hardly anyone in on it wants to chat about it.
Ian Whiteside has been fishing for almost 50 years and has spent a lifetime on the water. The only mulloway he ever caught was by accident.
“I was snapper fishing one night in the Black Rock area, and I got it close to the boat before I realised what it was, and then I saw it, and it was gone in a second,” Whiteside says.
“The mulloway are a really elusive species. It’s almost secretive society stuff. They’re revered.
“Most people that I know have never caught one. I’ve never actually landed one. Most people don’t have the patience to go and target them.”
Whiteside says there are Facebook groups, and even private anglers people can hire to help them find one. There are also a small few who dedicate their lives to catching them.
“If you’ve seen photos of these beautiful, big silver fish they’re holding, they are their trophy fish,” he says.
While the fishing spots are kept secret, anglers looking for a big catch will usually head out in the early morning or late evening, around the Patterson River Bridge, under the West Gate Bridge, in the Yarra near the CBD, or close to the eateries around Port Phillip.
‘They’re very big and strong and predatory’
Mathew Pham started chasing mulloway last year.
He has fished all his life, and known about the fish – which some call the “Yarra-mundi” – for a long time, but had never seen one.
In November he was fishing by the river when he hooked something huge, that got away. He told his friend, who said it must have been a mulloway, and together they started going out for them.
“We tried for pretty much almost two months straight, and we got nothing,” Pham says.
“And then there was one night we were just sitting there, with the lines in the water, and all of a sudden, they started going crazy.”
He says he had “never seen a fish that big, it fought so hard”. Afterwards, they were out trying to catch one every second day.
He said from January to March, it was him and his friend alone on the river – and with no competition they managed to reel in 15.
“Typically, people do not catch 15 – or even 10 or even five. It’s unheard of,” he says.
“This year, for some reason, I don’t know what happened, we started a bit earlier than everyone … so we were the only ones going for them.”
He says the people walking or running around Melbourne’s rivers have no idea there are giant fish swimming in them. And those that know about them don’t often talk about it.
“I think the special thing about it is the size,” he says.
“It’s like most guys that go fishing, they go for fish that are 20cm, 30cm. But with the mulloway they go up to a metre or more … from five kilos to 20 kilos.”
Pham, who has a day job in IT, runs a fishing TikTok, but he won’t share his technique as the secret is passed from one angler to another.
“Typically this is a very small community where one guy teaches another, and almost all will avoid publicly telling anyone how to do it.”
But Pham says there is tension among Mulloway anglers. There are purists like him who fish from the banks. They’ll jump fences or find rocky areas where it’s good to cast a rod.
But others will go out in boats with radars, using a technological advantage.
“A lot of guys, they want to increase their odds,” he says.
“A lot of times, they’re pretty successful, but if you have a sounder, it’s like cheating … you’re using technology to improve your odds.”
There is another big divide in the community, says Pham.
Some eat their catch from the Yarra River, and others release them back into the water.
Pham says he won’t eat anything that comes out of the Yarra, but will take them home for his parents. They have to be over a certain size, otherwise he says they taste soapy.
“They don’t care. They just wash it. And then they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s fine’. For them, mulloway is good eating.”
Victoria’s health department tells those fishing in the lower Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers that they “need to be careful about eating their catch”, due to pollutants found in some fish, including eel and black bream.
“The risks of eating your catch can be reduced if you make sensible choices about the type and amount of fish you eat,” it says.
Philip Weigall is a fly-fishing guide and instructor, and says the mulloway can swim between states. One study in 2011 showed a tagged mulloway swam 800km from the Glenelg River estuary in Victoria to the Murray’s mouth in South Australia – and back again – to find a mate.
Another study using tagging showed the fish can swim up to 50km up and down the Glenelg River estuary in four days.
“They migrate great distances,” Weigall says.
“They’re found all the way up the east coast and all the way through to the Murray River in South Australia.”
Last week, Weigall was back along the Glenelg River on a fishing trip, the only place he has ever caught one. In the back of his mind, he’ll be hoping to catch another.
“They’re very big and strong and predatory, got some mean teeth. What’s not to like?”
