The hand stamp read “MULLET.”
And, boy, did the Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage ink a lot of hands Feb. 19-20.
As if to make up for the celebration’s pandemic gap year in 2021, thousands poured into the fishing village of Cortez for the 40th annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival.
Festivalgoers had an array of activities to enjoy, including live music and “dock talks.”
Local acts, including the Eric Von Band and Soupy Davis and the Band, lit up a stage in the lot adjacent to the village’s “trap yard” at the southern end of 119th Street West.
The lot also hosted 16 food booths serving everything from boiled crawfish and crabcake sandwiches to cakes of the funnel and strawberry-short varieties.
Karen Carpenter, a Cortez Village Historical Society volunteer who helped with the nonprofit’s strawberry shortcake booth, said the organization purchased 132 pounds of strawberries for the event and sold out its desserts at 2 p.m. Feb. 19.
CVHS, which has hosted the dessert booth at the festival since the early 1990s, did not sell out of shortcakes in 2020 until the afternoon of the second day.
“We had a crackerjack team from the Manatee School for the Arts Key Club and they sold over 1,000 shortcakes,” Carpenter said. “After a year off, everybody was really ready to come together.”
On the dock at John Banyas’ Cortez Bait and Seafood fish house on the waterfront, educators from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Florida Sea Grant gave “dock talks.”
With real critters as props, Theresa Bert, a 32-year FWC research scientist, discussed the physiology and life cycle of Gulf Coast crustaceans while Angela Collins, a Florida Sea Grant extension agent, taught crowds how to identify native fish.
At a third station in the fish house, people handled live crabs and shrimp in a wide tank.
Banyas told The Islander Feb. 19 he opens up his space to the demonstrators each year to educate the public about local aquatic species and the commercial fishing industry.
“People that just don’t know or have never been here before, they get to understand a little bit about what this is about,” Banyas said. “We always want to educate people and give them a true understanding of commercial fishing. When the industry is alive, thriving and well, the habitat is thriving, alive and well.”
Banyas, who also owns Swordfish Grill, an adjacent restaurant, said 20% of the proceeds from their booth at the festival and from a rum-coconut booth would go to FISH, the nonprofit that sponsors the celebration and manages the 100-acre nature preserve east of Cortez.
“It’s a good day and it’s mainly for FISH. It’s for the preserve over there and it’s their day to make money to pay for the wetlands that we’re protecting,” he said.