Home > Floripedia > Fisheries	Site Map

Fisheries

Suniland Magazine

1925

Few States in the Union have more valuable or more diversified fisheries than Florida, which with three thousand miles of coastal territory and nearly three million acres of lake and waterway, is said to have a larger water area than any country of equal size in the world. No less than six hundred distinct species of fish inhabit the waters of Florida, many of them being food fish of import economic value. Florida has become so universally famous as the chosen home of the tarpon, the sailfish, the barracuda, the jewfish, and a myriad other gamey denizens of the deep that the commercial aspect of fishing in this state is seldom considered. And yet Florida's fisheries are tremendously important, it being not uncommon for her to ship the markets of the north seventy-five million pounds of fish a year. The chief varieties of edible salt water fish caught commercially in Florida are the mullet, the white shad, and the sea trout; the chief varieties of fresh water, the bass, the perch, the buffalo, and the catfish. Non-edible fish, used in the production of oil and fertilizer, are also extensively caught in the waters of Florida.

Source:
Excerpt from Agassiz, Garnault. "Florida in Tomorrow's Sun."
Suniland, Nov. 1925, Vol.3, No.2.

Exploring Florida: A Social Studies Resource for Students and Teachers
Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology,
College of Education, University of South Florida © 2005.