Geehee, if you wanna know if you got a mullet or not, check to see if it's got a gizzard. Far as I know, they're the only fish that has one; just like a chicken or a turkey. Lots of us crackers eat 'em deep fried after they're split, cleaned, and rolled around in some batter. Doggone good too!
None of the Indians down here, both the Seminoles or the ones that came before them, would eat mullet, but rather catch them by the hundreds in long woven nets to use them for fertilizer in their gardens, or bait for other fish and critters. Something about the gizzard in the fish freaked them out, so it was a trash fish.
Of course, them Injuns was plain wrong, they're a very meaty fish prone to vegetarianism and are a freakin' blast to catch on a ten foot cane pole, baited up with tiny dough balls on really small hooks because mullet have small mouths. we bypass the sport of mullet fishing with pole and line and go straight to the cast net. When they're running good, it's all about volume, after the table's set around here there's nine pair of legs that pull up under it, plus brothers and sisters with their families in other households around here that pile into the mullet as well. The freezers are stocked, but not full, so hopefully we'll get back out in the not too far off future and catch another big mess. That'll hold us until the fall when the big gulf stream mullet start coming in full of roe in the fall just before archery season.
If you ain't tried any Gee, you ought to the next time you make it down to Dixie!
