The Cortez festival that began in 1983 with hundreds of attendees will celebrate its 35th year with an expected two-day attendance of 20,000.
The Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival will be held Feb. 18-19 in the same location as recent fests — the area surrounding the 119th Street fishing docks.
Since the early 1990s, the festival has been sponsored by the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage.
At a Jan. 2 meeting, FISH board members spoke of pulling permits, lining up security and trying to build on the event’s recent successes.
Vice president Jane von Hahmann predicted the numbers based on the growing festival.
Themed “Fishing for the Future,” the lineup of music, food and exhibits — many geared to educate the public about commercial fishing — are expected to crowd the waterfront.
FISH, with some 180 members and a 15-member board, is a Cortez-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving the commercial fishing industry and the environment upon which it depends.
Festival chair Rose Lipke said FISH has encouraged sustainable and locally sourced food vendors — though some local restaurants have found it hard to participate during the peak tourist season.
Dock Talks, a returning feature, includes Sea Grant Florida scientists speaking on the environmental concerns related to commercial fishing.
Lipke said such concerns include red tide and coastal development. She added fishers face excessive governmental fishing regulations.
“The fishing industry has always faced challenges,” Lipke said.
Cortez was settled in the 1880s by North Carolina mullet fishers and the community grew despite a 1921 hurricane, bouts of red tide in the 1930s and ’40s and mangrove destruction due to coastal development in the 1960s and ’70s.
A recovery came to Cortez in the 1970s as the price for mullet and the harvest skyrocketed, only to be set back by the 1995 gill-net ban, which pushed fishers to retool. Some went to stone crabbing. Some continued mullet fishing with cast nets.
“Over the years, those issues affect everybody on the coasts who work on or depend on the water — even residents,” Lipke said.
New to the festival this year will be a stone crab trapping demonstration.
Mark Coarsey, president of the Manatee County chapter of Fishing for Freedom, told the FISH board Jan. 2 he is gathering volunteers to assist with the exhibit.
As in previous years, his group also will host a “touch tank.”
Last year’s festival drew an estimated 19,000 visitors and raised $118,000 in net proceeds, up from $80,000 in 2015.
Like last year, there will be free parking at the FISH preserve.
Manatee County Area Transportation shuttles run from G.T. Bray Park, 5502 33rd Ave. Drive W., Bradenton, and Coquina Beach, 2650 Gulf Drive S., Bradenton Beach.
To cover rising costs, the $3 admission price of past years will increase to $4.
Festival proceeds fund the FISH budget, including a 95-acre preserve, the Cortez Cultural Center, a boat works program, Fisherman’s Hall and other properties, historic signs and legal challenges to protect the environment and economy of Cortez.
FISH will next meet at the Sunday School Building, the offices behind Fisherman’s Hall, 4515 124th St. W., Cortez.
Student artists paint, spruce up FISH fest
Art is possible on a variety of canvases.
And artist Rose Lipke is looking for leftover paint to spruce up the one thing all festivals need — festive garbage receptacles.
It’s her third year chairing the Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival committee for the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage.
Among her festival duties, she’s organizing a paint project with students from Manatee School for the Arts in Bradenton.
As the students have done in previous years, they will paint cardboard containers with nautical or marine life designs of their choice.
“We’re just trying to support up-and-coming artists in any way we can,” Lipke told the FISH board Jan. 2.
The school is one of few focused on art programs and the students get credit for helping the nonprofit, she said.
Lipke knows how to make art fun and educational with a resume that includes Feld Entertainment productions, such as Disney on Ice, “Finding Nemo” and “The Incredibles.”
“Quite a few kids show up. It’s kind of a free for all,” she said.
Anyone with a latex paint donation can call Lipke at 941-725-9189 or email her at rosemlipke@gmail.com.
