The Island King were
sitting in the boat last weekend watching a school of mullet swim by,
making me wish we'd brought the mullet net.
After sitting a bit I went
for a walk along the shore and when I looked up I saw the Mullet Man.
The Mullet Man is awesome.
He's been running the Bay for years, catching mullet and selling them
to the fish markets.
The Island King flagged
him down but the Mullet Man told him he was on his way to make a big
cast.
He did say he'd be right
back though.
Sure enough, a few minutes
later he came back.
We walked over to his boat
and the Island King told him we wanted whatever $20 would get us.
He opened his cooler and
let us pick the ones we wanted. Those fish weren't even dead yet
which meant we were getting true “fresh” fish.
We'd point out ones we
wanted (we prefer the smaller ones) and he'd stuff them in a 5 gallon
bucket. He was also grabbing fish and putting them in the bucket so I
don't know exactly how much $20 will get you but we finally had to
tell him to stop because we had more than plenty.
Once we finished he was
off to catch some more and we headed home to fry up some still
flopping mullet for dinner.
We had so much that on the
way home we talked about cooking some and then freezing the rest for
bait.
It's a good thing we got
so much though because when we got home there were 3 college kids
and 4 teenagers hanging around the house.
The Island King couldn't
cook that fish fast enough. He'd pull a batch out and it would
disappear immediately.
In the end, everyone had
full bellies and we still had a tiny bit left to freeze for bait.
Running into the Mullet
Man is always a good thing.
DISCLAIMER: In a lot of
places mullet is considered a trash fish. They are bottom feeders and
if the bottom is silty or dirty, the meat will taste fishy and dirty.
BUT our bays have clean, sandy white bottoms which means the meat
from our local mullet has a nice, sweet flavor. If you're visiting
Northwest Florida try some fried mullet. You'll be glad you did.
