Fishing Panama City Beach . . years ago . . part 2
By William E. Males
By 1825 St Andrews Bay had an established reputation throughout the lower portions of Alabama and Georgia as a hot fishing spot. It soon began to be customary for some of the inland plantation farmers to take several men and some covered wagons with their fishing equipment in the spring and fall for one to three weeks of intense power fishing. It wasn’t long and you could bet a few of those wagons had bumper stickers saying things like “I’d rather be fishing” and, “A bad day fishing is better than a good day farming.” Soon, some families began to remain here the year around and either fished for these farmers when they came, or set up St Andrews Bay earliest boat rental and fishing guide services.
This rich bounty being reaped form the gulf gradually increased with the growth of the country and by 1850 St Andrews had quite an extensive fish business thriving here. In 1871 Andrew Fuller Warren came to Pensacola to work for the Pensacola Fish Company, an offshoot enterprise of the city’s first ice factory. Prior to Panamas City’s own ice company, ice was harvested from the rivers and lakes of New England had been shipped to Pensacola and other gulf ports. But now with a readily available supply of ice Andrew Warren saw a great potential of the fishing industry to grow even more. Content that Panama City was the perfect place to raise a family and crave out a life for himself, in 1873 Warren married Fannie Clark Stearns of Bath, Maine. Later, in 1880, Warren’s brother-in-law, Silas Stearns, joined them in Pensacola and they established Warren and Company; the name was eventually changed to Warren Fish Company. The company flourished and Silas Stearns became one of the most remarkable naturalists in American history.
The Warren Fish Company developed a sound reputation for serious scientific research into the fish population of the gulf. Though not having any professional training in marine sciences, through his love for the gulf water and its rich marine life Silas Stearns gained national repute as a naturalist by collecting and supplying specimens of gulf marine life to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In 1878 Stearns visited the Institution and long after continued to carry on extensive correspondence. Because of his dedication and work the Smithsonian Institution identified fifty previously unidentified species of marine life, four of them named after Stearns. In acknowledgment of his expertise, Stearns was appointed a Special Agent of the U.S. Fish Commission; he was in charge of the 10th census of the marine industries of the gulf.
The emerald Coast with its seemingly endless supply of food being harvested from the sea drew the attention and concern of the US Fish Commission in 1883 so they commissioned Silas Stearns to provide a report on these fisheries for the government. In his report he stated, “Between 1850 and I860 Saint Andrews was a lively active place containing at least 1200 or 1500 people. There were sawmills in operation and shipping was carried on to an important eaten. The city in summer was visited by many people from Alabama and Georgia who of course circulated money in the place. There, as in nearly every seaport town, fish formed the chief article of diet. As the place became more thrifty and continued to grow in size the demand for fish increased in proportion.”
Back then, the majority of the commercial fishing was done entirely with drag seines which were from 50 to 75 fathoms in length, and from 6 to 12 feet deep, having a bag in the middle at which point the seine is attained its greatest depth. These nets required four or five men to handle one seine which was deployed from a single boat. The captain of the boat would stand on the bow guiding the boat by means of a pole and watching for signs of the approach of fish.
The seasons had considerable affect on the quantity of fish that a daily catch would bring. In winter two or three barrels were considered a fair day’s catch; in spring, about twice that amount. But come the fall, as many barrels as the boat could carry in one or two outings, up to 25 or 30 barrels, such fish as Spanish mackerel, pompano, trout, redfish, sheepshead, blue fish and mullet.
The primary market for these fish was in the immediate inland residents of the local area. Some of the fishermen preferred to carry the fish to the local residents and markets, but many simply sold them at their own doors. However, those who chose the “we deliver” method of doing commerce would start up country with their barrels of fish loaded on an ox cart and stop at every town and plantation until all their fish were sold. This energetic marketing method was much more profitable to the fishermen, for of course, the buyer out shopping for the fish did not expect to pay as much for them as they would if they were delivered at their houses.
Because of the volume of fish being delivered and sold, it was frequently necessary for a late seller to go as far as Columbus Ga., before selling all the fish. With the large amount of plantations in the south, these were by some of the best inland customers who bought the fish to feed to their farm help. After the fish caught by a crew were sold, the division of the proceeds was made. The seine and boat drew one share the captain two and each of the crew one share.
It was impossible, Silas Stearns noted, to get at the exact amount of fish caught here from 1850 to 1860, but as near as could be determined it amounted to 21,000 barrels of salted fish or a trifle over 2,000 a year. Silas Stearns further sated, “In the year 1863 Saint Andrews City was bombarded and destroyed by the Federal gun boats, as were the fisheries and salt works about the bay. This event and the continued presence of the gun boats stopped all fishing in this bay until after the close of the war.”
The fisherman who remained residents of the local area because of the war were without their fishing outfits and thus a greater part of them had sought better and safer fields elsewhere. This gave way for the poorer classes of the inland country to call upon those living at the bay for fish, for which they paid for with exchanges of syrup, corn, sweet potatoes. These people seeing an opportunity to get into the fishing trade expanded their interest to the bounty of the gulf, and a new class of fishermen from people who had come to bay areas for the purpose of farming, but only found a scanty living. These new fisherman were only too glad to make a career change and those who were able to buy seines did so immediately. Now by fishing just two to three months during spring and fall they realized profits that exceeded those from farming for the remaining nine months of the year. It wasn’t long but by 1882 there were some twenty five or thirty families near the bay with about thirty five men and boys fishing during the season for a livelihood.
Today, the number of families still finding a good living from the gulf waters has continued to increase. Panama City Beach remains world famous for its Emerald Coast and it’s ever yielding abundance of fish and opportunity for commerce. With a world class array of multimillion dollar fishing yachts with some of the most experience captains and crews the guarantee of a hearty day’s catch can still be made. So whether you’re content to sit in a chair on the beach with a line in the water, or out poling the flats, or riding the waves for a wall trophy, Panama City Beach still continues to provide countless opportunities for fishing fun.
