Mullet: A Tale of two Fish
Last Wednesday night, about 150 people arrived early at Fishers of Men Lutheran Church for a reception featuring light, mullet-based hors d ‘oeuvres, courtesy of Blue Dog Bar and Grill, and a film about ‘the long and storied history of Florida’s most under-appreciated fish’ the mullet.
“This is the second film in our series on Gulf Coast sustainable seafoods,” said Barbara Linstrom, manager of WGCU’s television productions, as she opened the program. “The first film, ‘Pink Gold Rush,’ is a film about the history and biology of pink shrimp in Southwest Florida. Tonight’s film, ‘Mullet: A Tale of two Fish,’ is about the mullet and its history, economic viability and impact in Southwest Florida.”
In the introduction to the 60-minute film, the narrator describes the mullet as a food source in Southwest Florida dating back to the Calusa Indians. From the time the Calusa lived in Southwest Florida, fishing and eating mullet has been a staple. From the Calusa to the Spanish explorers, to the early Florida pioneers to today, people have been eating mullet.
But in recent years, specifically since the net ban of 1995, the mullet has become considered a “bait-fish.”
The narrator poses the question, “So what’s become of the Florida mullet. How did this proud and plentiful fish, a fish that’s still considered a valuable food source in many parts of the world, become such a ‘mullet-non-gratas’, especially here in Florida?”
Kenneth Leber, associate vice president for research and program manager of Marine Laboratory and Museum Fisheries Ecology and Enhancement, spoke about the quantities of mullet before the net ban of 1995.
“If you look at the goals before the net ban, the spawning population size was thought to be below a sustainable number,” Leber said. “In Florida, we have what is called the ‘Spawning Potential Ratio’ and that tells us the amount of mullet we need to have to sustain the population going forward. That number is about 35 percent. In the early 1990s, it was down around 26 percent, so regulations were implemented to bring the population up. That is when the net ban was implemented.”
Since 2012, the United States has an $11 billion seafood deficit while $2.1 billion in seafood is imported into Florida. Chris Cogan, CEO of Healthy Earth, proposes to create a state-of-the-art processing facility to grow and sell mullet.
In the attempt to bring mullet back as a source of protein, Kevan Main, from MOTE Aquaculture Research Park, proposes that the planet’s population will grow from 7 to 9 billion is the next 30 years.
“It’s growing quite rapidly and we’re going to need protein and it’s going to be fish and the sea and it’s going to come from aquaculture,” Main said. “We import 91 percent of the seafood we eat. Say a fish like mullet, we could increase the numbers for the fishermen and utilize aquaculture making it available on our restaurant menus.”
Pine Island resident and lifetime fisherman Mike Dooley described what it was like growing up in a fishing family. Dooley reminisced about fishing with his father as a child, and his dad building him a skiff when he turned 12.
“I fished after school and on weekends,” Dooley said. “I made money to buy school clothes. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was a lot of money if you didn’t have any. When I got married, I supported a family of four fishing for mullet. We ate a lot of mullet. It’s been a good life.”
About the fact that mullet is underutilized today, Dooley said, “Mullet’s not pumped up like other fish. People think mullet is bait. Mullet has a bad reputation. It’s always had a bad reputation.”
Following the film, a panel discussion took place. The five panelists were: Dooley and his son Shawn Dooley, who is also a fisherman; Dr. Main; Dr. Leber; and Jessy Tincher, chef at Blue Dog Bar and Restaurant.
Joy Hazell, Lee County Extension Agent for Florida Sea Grant, led the panel discussion.
Panel questions
and answers:
Q. Is aquaculture damaging to the ecology?
A. Main: “Over half the seafood we’re consuming is being produced through aquaculture. This is a field where we’re working through the process and have made a great deal of progress in the last several years.
Q. The problem we have is the numbers of mullet are way down and the mullet are not here. If Mike Dooley could address that?
A. Dooley: “I think it’s the water quality right now. We had red tide in October. They took the Ceitus Boat Lift out and all that makes poison. Years ago we had red tide once a year and now we have it all year long. So I think that the major problem right now the water.
Q. What’s going on with the waters in the area that the abundance of mullet is low?
A. Dooley: “We used to catch mullet in Buzzard Bay but since the Ceitus Boat Lift was taken out I haven’t caught anything there. And about the water, when you get back in the boat, your legs itch. The other day, I had a small cut on my finger and it burned after it got wet. There’s something in the water.
Q. With all of the red tide issues we have, is aquaculture even viable here?
A. Main: “That’s correct, you can’t cultivate fish in red tide water. But where aquaculture has been applied successfully has been many miles out. We would be looking at 60 miles into the Gulf.
A. Leber: “MOTE has studied Red tide for decades and the curious thing is, they can find no connection between the runoff and the incidences of red tide. What they have found is, it starts way out at sea and makes it way up the coast.
Q. Mullet is one of my favorite fish, but they’re not very popular, especially with northerners. What can we do about getting people to eat more mullet.
A. Tincher: “It seems some people just don’t know about mullet. They know about grouper, snapper, mahi-mahi. But we’re trying to let people know how good mullet is. Every Monday at Blue Dog we celebrate ‘Mullet Monday.’ I invite anyone that hasn’t had mullet to come out and give it a try.