there is NO red Tide in the canals or the upper Harbor. the dead mullet you are seeing in the canals or where ever are a direct result of Viagra. yes this little blue pill changed life for many commercial fisherman. Mullet come in two types Boy & girl and several subspecies. Black , silver for instance For this lets stick to Boy or Girl the female mullet produce eggs “RED ROW” as it is called, which are sold for caviar, which this year had been bringing $1.4o to $2.oo per pound whole fish. Yes the eggs are sold as well as the meat. Now the males they produce sperm “WHITE ROW” as it is called, selling for .05 cents a pound. Once a highly prized item in the orient as an aphrodisiac similar to Oyster in that men who eat it are better at sexual relations or so they think. But that was the story. Now why eat fish sperm when you can swallow a blue pill and Badda bing there you go . Well you get the idea.
The only way to tell if the mullet you are catching is white row or Red row is to after you catch it squeeze the belly as see what color comes out. Red = money. white = not worth carry back with you. The big problem is when they strike a big school and catch 500 or a thousand pounds at once. then after they load up the boat, then they see what they caught. Boats can only hold so much weight so would you carry 500 pounds of fish which is worth $25.oo or get rid of it for 500 pounds worth $800.oo this is the reality of mullet fishing in a world with Viagra.
Mullet is one of the best eating fish in Florida it just has a bad repuattion, baked ,fried, grilled, or even yuk smoked, <– I dont like smoked mullet , I do like it steamed and served with hot butter & lemon as poor mans lobster, now that is good. It was Black mullet which brought the first settlers here in a permenat camp 1705 the mullet run was and still is money. However times change and maybe some where in some city there is a market for male mullet sperm. I can not imagine it is too large of a market.
Any way mystery solved, now you know where the floating Mullet are coming from no toxic chemicals, no disease, no Red tide. just no market value >