In the spring they'd start with a 3-inch mesh. The fishing trade has stayed pretty much the same in Cortez since the first settlers came in the late 1800s. As always, fishermen have had to deal with the vagaries of nature, blistering heat, intense storms and red tides. Every Monday through Saturday, and for a few on Sunday too, the captains and their crews make their way down to the docks and head out for the cay and sometimes through the night. As time goes by There have been some changes during Cortez's 100-year history.
Boats now have engines and fish are iced instead of being salted for shipping.
Perhaps the biggest change was in the netting material. Originally, nets were made of cotton or linen. They worked well, but at the end of each day, they had to be laid out and limed and dried completely or else they would rot. Stretching the nets onto rockers and mixing up the lime and spreading it was a time-consuming, but necessary part of fishing. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, these nets were replaced first with nylon and then monofilament.