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Tag: Cortez Bait and Seafood

Cortez moves forward with stone crab harvest

Cortez moves forward with stone crab harvest

Written by Leslie Lake on . Posted in Community News, Cortez, Featured.

CORTEZ – In a display of resilience following recent back-to-back hurricanes, both Cortez fish houses are moving forward with the seasonal stone crab harvest.

Stone crab harvesting season runs from Oct. 15 through May 1.

“One boat went out today,” Karen Bell, owner of A.P. Bell Fish Co., responded by text on Oct. 15 to a question by The Sun about the viability of this year’s season. “There definitely will be a season.”

Stone crabs are harvested for their claws and then returned to the water where the claws will regenerate. The claws are a delicacy in seafood shops and restaurants.

The season will also continue this year at John Banyas’ Cortez Bait and Seafood, Inc., according to Swordfish Grill General Manager Adam Sears.

He responded to The Sun by text, saying, “We have gear in the water.”

According to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) regulations for commercial harvesting of stone crabs: “Traps may be placed in the water and baited 10 days prior to the opening of the stone crab season. Please be aware that once placed, you may not tend to the traps until the start of the season, at which time you may begin harvesting.”

A Manatee County Historical Society plaque in front of Star Fish Company references a long history of determination in Cortez and reads in part: “Records show that by 1897 Cortez was a thriving fishing community with stores, a school and other refinements. The fish houses and other shoreline structures were virtually destroyed by the high waters and winds of the 1921 hurricane, but the determined residents rebuilt.”

In order to allow residents time to recover and rebuild from the two recent hurricanes, the 12th annual Cortez Stone Crab & Music Festival was canceled this year.

“We look forward to bringing back the festival better and stronger next year,” according to organizers.

Mullet season in full swing

Mullet season in full swing

Written by Leslie Lake on . Posted in Featured, Fishing, Outdoors.

CORTEZ – It might not be for joy, but the mullet are definitely jumping.

Spawning season and cast net-wielding fishermen anxious to make some Christmas money are a formula for a busy mullet season at John Banyas’ Cortez Bait and Seafood fish house.

“It’s mostly local people bringing the mullet in to us,” Banyas said. “They’re out there castnetting closer to the cold fronts.”

Banyas, a fourth-generation fisherman from Cortez, owns Swordfish Grill & Tiki Bar, N.E. Taylor Boatworks, Killer Bait and Cortez Bait and Seafood.

He has seven boats in his fleet but says he relies on people fishing from their own boats to bring the mullet in.

The catches have varying degrees of value, with the real treasure being females with red roe. The egg sack from the gray mullet can be made into bottarga. The salted, cured fish roe pouch is considered a delicacy in Europe and Asia.

“The females have the red roe and the males white,” he said. “They’re all desirable, but we pay more for the red.”

On Dec. 15, Banyas said they were paying $1.60 per pound for the females with red roe and 30 cents a pound for others.

“There’s definitely money to be made,” he said, picking up a good-sized mullet. “This one alone could be more than $5.”

The fish are brought in by land or sea. They’re processed and cut, then packaged and frozen in large walk-in freezers before being shipped off to the wholesale market. He said that his facility processes thousands of pounds per day.

“We ship out all over,” Banyas said. “Italy, Taiwan. Mullet is used for crab bait or food.”

Mullet fishing has a long history in Cortez. “The North Carolina families came in the 1880s with the hope that the mullet and the sweat of their brow would bring a better life,” according to a publication from the Cortez Village Historical Society. “This unique community of 20 extended families with a love of fishing in their hearts has survived on hard work, fierce pride and a plentiful supply of fish.”

A quote from the late Cortez fisherman Ralph “Pig” Fulford sums up the importance of mullet to the Cortez fishing village.

“Mullet. That’s it. Some folks say fish smell. I say it smells like money.”