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 tourists head north to catch the fall foliage, local anglers head to nearshore waters to catch the annual fall mullet run. The mullet migration offers some of the best, most frenzied fishing of the year as everything from snook to sailfish show up to feast on the schools of mullet.

When the mullet are running _ and they could start any day now _ the catches border on the unbelievable. Everyone has a mullet run story:

– Fort Lauderdale fishing guide Steve Kantner remembered hooking one tarpon after another fishing in the surf off Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. “We’re waist-deep in the water, there’s like thousands of mullet around us, they’re in our pockets, and tarpon are eight feet away, blowing up on the mullet,” Kantner said. “You’d cast out a bait, a tarpon would grab it and scream out 40-pound line.”

– Capt. Steve Anderson of Tequesta recalled catching kingfish of 46, 43 and 42 pounds in one day _ fishing from the beach. “The only reason we fished for them is we saw them skyrocketing through the mullet schools,” he said.

– George Copeland of T&R; Tackle in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea told of seeing sharks in just a few feet of water off the beach. “And not just 2- or 3-foot sharks, but 400-pound sharks 10-12 feet long,” he said.

– Last year, Capt. Gregg Gentile of Port St. Lucie caught 45-pound jack crevalles on top-water plugs and 20-pound line fishing inside St. Lucie Inlet. “We have big ocean ‘cudas come in,” Gentile said. “It gets pretty wild.”

– I had a trip on the flats of Stuart with Gentile and Mark Nichols of D.O.A. Lures. Using D.O.A. Baitbuster and TerrorEyz plastic lures, which imitate baitfish, we caught snook, tarpon, sea trout, jacks and ladyfish all morning.

Among the other gamefish that follow the mullet are redfish, bluefish, Spanish mackerel and sailfish. When the dinner bell rings, things get frantic.

Tarpon and mackerel will crash into a mullet school, then they and other fish gobble up the stunned and maimed mullet. Bluefish will tear through a school and snook will lurk underneath and pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, pelicans and seagulls attack the mullet from above.

Mullet are motivated by cool weather and the need to spawn. They congregate along the Atlantic coast and start swimming south as water temperatures cool. Typically, the big schools of mullet pass through South Florida in mid-October. They usually head offshore to spawn after a cold front.

Gentile believes the fall run will be early this year because mullet have been loitering in and around Stuart for the past three weeks.

“It’s just minutes away from happening,” Gentile said. “We need a cold snap. We have to put sweatshirts on. That’ll get them moving.”

When they do get going, the schools have a mind of their own. Some move straight down the coast at a steady rate of speed, as fast as 5-6 mph. You know that if those mullet are off Sebastian today, they’ll be off Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.

Other schools dawdle. They move south, then stop for a while before continuing. Some schools move right along the beach, then move several miles offshore, then come in close again.

Some mullet schools move inshore through an inlet _ especially when the tide is outgoing _ scatter, then regroup at the next inlet and go back outside. So just because a mullet school is south of Boca Raton this morning doesn’t mean it’ll be off Pompano Beach this afternoon. The fish could go inside Hillsboro Inlet and reappear south of Port Everglades Inlet.

That’s why a mullet run angler’s most important piece of equipment is a telephone. Serious anglers have contacts all along the coast: tackle shops, beachfront condo residents, lifeguards.

“We’ve got a network of about 20 of us who buzz the phone lines in the afternoon,” Gentile said. “That’s how we know where to go and where not to go.”

When you do come upon a mullet school, the first thing to do is watch it closely. See what the mullet and what the fish feeding on them are doing.

Sometimes predators surround the mullet and nibble on the fish at the edge of the school. Tarpon often jump completely out of the water, then come crashing back into the middle of the mullet school. Snook like to hang below the school and suck in mullet with an audible pop. Jacks will charge into the school and send mullet flying.

Whether fishing from a boat, a beach, a jetty or a pier, it pays to fish a live mullet just in front of the mullet school. That lone fish is an easy target for a tarpon. Some anglers make their mullet look vulnerable by adding a sinker to the rig, which forces the mullet to swim below the school.

Where you hook the mullet also is important. To make it swim away from the beach, hook it in the back, behind the second dorsal fin. From a boat, hook it through the upper jaw or nose.

If mackerel and bluefish are slashing through a mullet school, one of the best baits is a mullet head. Simply cast it into the school and let it flutter to the bottom.

White nylon jigs will catch a variety of species, but the classic mullet run lure is a 5/8ths-ounce Krocodile spoon. Standard equipment on South Florida piers, a Krocodile is especially effective on Spanish mackerel and bluefish. Kantner fishes Krocodiles on a 7-foot rod with 10-pound line and a high-speed spinning reel.

To avoid losing the spoon to those toothy critters, Kantner wraps a 4-inch piece of No. 2 wire to the swivel on the Krocodile and makes a plain Haywire loop in the other end of the wire. To his 10-pound line Kantner ties an 18-inch piece of 30-pound monofilament, attaching it with a surgeon’s knot. The other end of the 30-pound leader is tied to the wire with a clinch knot, but with just two turns instead of five.

Your retrieve depends on what’s feeding on the mullet. Spanish mackerel hover near the surface and like a fast, steady retrieve. Bluefish tend to hang near the bottom, so your best bet is to cast the spoon and let it sink to the bottom. Then reel it to the surface, let it sink again and repeat.

Both species travel in schools, so if you get a hit but don’t hook up, keep working your lure; chances are you’ll get another bite.