The 2015 mullet run is off to a slow start.
But Cortez fisherman Mark Coarsey and Cortez Bait & Seafood owner John Banyas are hopeful the fish will pick up the pace.
Coarsey blames the lack of fish on two natural factors: El Nino and red tide.
“It’s been real warm,” Coarsey said, referring to the weather patterns created by El Nino. “We’re expecting a cold front soon and that should bring them in, but it can’t come soon enough.”
El Nino is a temporary weather change that causes the water temperature to rise a few degrees.
Mullet typically migrate in winter from northern, colder waters to find spawning areas in the warmer waters to the south.
The large migration is called a run and it sends millions of mullet from the bays into the Gulf, where local fishers are ready and waiting with nets.
The fish also are heavy with red and white roe by winter. The red roe is a delicacy and can fetch a high price.
The current prices being paid to fishers for red (female) roe is $1.20 per pound. White (male) roe fetches the fisher 20 cents per pound.
For the red tide, Coarsey said any fish he saw around Thanksgiving — the traditional soft-start of the mullet run — from Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island waters were dead.
According to data received Dec. 16 from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, a high concentration of Karenia brevis is blooming along the northern edge of Sarasota County, right along the shore of Longboat Key.
It showed the same concentration level Dec. 3.
Banyas mirrored Coarsey’s sentiment about the weather, hoping for a cold front to change the fisher’s fortune. But even then, Banyas said, there’s a lot of folks fishing for too few fish.
“It’s picking up, but there’s too many people out there,” Banyas said.
The past few years of colder weather made the mullet runs a lucrative venture for fishers, but now that it’s slow, there’s not enough fish to go around.
“There are more boats than fish,” Coarsey said.
Even with the slow start, Coarsey is out there every day looking for mullet, making enough money to pay for his boat fuel.
“I’m seeing signs of life,” Coarsey said. “We’re catching snook and pinfish — which have usually traveled upriver by now — so that’s a good sign the red tide may be leaving.”
The mullet run is counted on by fishers in Cortez to bring a merry Christmas home for their families.