Boat ramps in Cortez and on Anna Maria Island are packed as fishers from around the state are coming to fish in the annual mullet run.
In the fall, as temperatures drop, mullet group together and begin a migration pattern tied to their reproduction cycle. As the mullet move in large schools, a fishing frenzy begins with hardened anglers throwing out heavy cast nets. A successful throw can mean a heavy haul.
The cold weather signals an instinct in mullet to migrate south in large groups, making it easier to net more fish in one throw. Adding to the allure for fishers is a higher probability of legal-sized, sexually mature fish.
While male and female fish are caught, sold and eaten, the red roe — sometimes called “poor man’s caviar” — in the female mullet is the real catch. This year’s prices at Cortez Bait and Seafood, 4528 119th St. W., Cortez, are $1.90 a pound for female fish and 15 cents a pound for male.
Cortez fisher Mark Coarsey said he’s seeing more fishers in Cortez this year than in any other year.
“There was a hundred boats in one group today. You can’t get a boat in the boat ramp,” Coarsey said.
But the fishing has been good. He said Dec. 10 he and his son, Lee Coarsey, brought two loads of 5,000 pounds — their boat’s capacity — to Cortez Bait and Seafood. Its nonstop fishing for the father and son until the mullet head south.
The schools of mullet head south to the southern point of Florida, where sexually mature fish mate in deeper waters and release fertilized eggs into the Gulf Stream to travel north, continuing the migration pattern. To extract the roe, the fish must be caught before they mate.
Fishers from around the state join in the pursuit of the vegetarian bottom-feeders. On Dec. 9, fishers from the Tampa, Daytona and Jacksonville areas frequented the waters that week, many saying they plan to follow the mullet as far south as Marco Island, just north of Everglades National Park.
Capt. Danny Richards, of Seabreeze Devil Crabs, 2111 North Blvd., Tampa, said he started fishing for mullet in November in Tampa and followed the fish south to Cortez. Richards said he began gillnetting, which was banned in 1995, at age 12 and has been following the mullet for 35 years. He now uses a cast nest to catch the fish.
After Jan. 1, Richards said he and his crew will be net-fishing mullet off Marco Island. And, after the mullet run, it’s back to crabbing for blue crabs through the summer.
Nora Davenport from Oak Hill, a town near Daytona, said she and her husband have been working the mullet run since 1995. She said they fish in Cortez every year before the fish move down the coast.
“We’re here as long as the fish are,” Davenport said.