A Brief History of Paddle Fishing in Florida
An excerpt from the book, Fishing Florida by Paddle
Prior to the arrival of Columbus, Florida’s aboriginal tribes such as the Calusa, the Tequesta, the Ais, the Timucua, and several others, made a large part of their living by harvesting the rich fish and shellfish resources available here. An analysis of faunal remains at an archaeological site on Sanibel Island showed that more than 93 percent of the energy from animals in the native’s diet came from fish and shellfish, less than 6 percent of the energy came from mammals, and less than 1 percent came from birds and reptiles. They may have used traps, spears, and nets, but these people were fishermen!
The oldest canoe found in the western hemisphere was uncovered on the northern shore of Lake Parker, northeast of Lakeland. A radiocarbon analysis indicates this canoe was about 3000 years old. It was in use 1000 years before the birth of Christ! These boats were hand-carved dugout canoes, mostly made from cypress logs, powered by human muscle, propelled with both hand-carved paddles and pushpoles. Paddle fishing, although not as we know it today, predates the European’s arrival in Florida by a couple of millennia.
Something to keep in mind while paddling on Florida’s waters- long before the interstate highway system, or automobiles, or even bicycles, these waters were the highways of the aboriginal peoples of Florida. The rivers were less altered then, and surely had many more fish. But the natives moved on them using a method similar to that used by modern paddlers. When you paddle you’re carrying on a tradition that is thousands of years old!
More recently, in the early 1900s Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway did a lot to popularize Florida fishing. Those men did not paddle, however. The first big game paddle fisherman was most likely Anthony Weston Dimock. His Book of the Tarpon was first published in 1911.
A February morning in 1882 found Dimock fishing from a fragile canoe with Tat, his guide and stern man. At the mouth of Florida’s Homosassa River, where the current sweeps past Shell Island and out into the Gulf of Mexico, Dimock hooked a tarpon while drifting shrimp for sea trout.
When the fish leaped its first awesome leap, Dimock writes, “The brilliant rays of the semi-tropical sun made a prism of every drop in the shower that surrounded the creature…. At first I thought the wonderful being was a mermaid, as I noted her fierce display of activity and strength. I pitied the merman who came home late…. Then I suspected it was a wicked genie freed from the Seal of Solomon, which had imprisoned it for thousands of years.
“I was brought back to earth by Tat: ‘Mus’ be a tarpum!’
“‘What’s that!’ I asked.
“‘That’s what got your hook.’
“Talking in circles is profitless and I turned to my buzzing reel, shouting as I saw the diminishing line: ‘Pull like smoke, Tat! Line’s ‘most gone.’
“Then I put on the drag, but it had no effect. I held my rod vertically and pressed my thumb hard on the reel.
“Once more the creature shot high in the air while my thumb got red hot.
“This was in February, 1882, three years before the recognition of the tarpon as a game fish. I believe the tarpon then on my line is entitled to the credit of being the first of its species captured with rod and reel.”
Dimock spent thousands of hours exploring Florida’s Gulf coast by motor launch and canoe, searching and fishing for tarpon from Cedar Key down into the Everglades and Keys and even up the Atlantic coast as far as Miami. He used conventional rod and reel, handline, fly tackle, even small harpoons, releasing most of the tarpon he caught regardless of how they were captured. Still in print, Book of the Tarpon is a must-read for those who want to know what fishing was like here when Florida was still mostly a wilderness.
Mass produced paddle boats slowly became more popular as fishing boats, enough so that in 1902 the Old Town Canoe Company incorporated, building its wood and canvas boats in Old Town, Maine. Some found their way to Florida. Old Town eventually became the world’s largest builder of canoes.
During the late 1960s Old Town pioneered the use of fiberglass in their boats. Shortly after they introduced plastic and rotomolded boats into their line. This line now includes sit-inside kayaks, using a design based on the ancient Inuit wood-and-sealskin boats, as well as a sit-on-top model. With the surge in the popularity of sit-on-tops and SUPs, canoes are less popular than they used to be, but Old Town and dozens of other companies still build and sell canoes.
In the meantime other events were occurring elsewhere.
In 1971 Tim Niemier, a surfer and scuba diver in Malibu, California who had just finished high school, modified an old surfboard to carry himself and his dive gear. Out of such a humble beginning the sit-on-top kayak was born. Niemier sold that first boat for three times his production cost, and went into the kayak building business. A few years later he founded Ocean Kayak. This led to the huge popularity of the sit-on-top designs we see today, with dozens of manufacturers selling thousands of boats every year.
Like canoes and kayaks, the stand-up paddleboard has a history that goes back thousands of years. Its modern form developed in Hawaii in the 1900s, its original use confined to surfing and related activities. Once the “modern” SUP reached California in the early 2000s, its popularity accelerated exponentially. By 2005 SUPs were used for racing, touring, river descents, yoga, and fishing.
According to the website supconnect.com, “… then came the ultimate emancipation of SUP from its roots: fishing. Among the first was the Lane family down in San Diego, later a few people off Cabo San Lucas, but it wasn’t till it reached Florida that SUP fishing became a certifiable chapter of SUP history. Corey and Magdalena Cooper, from Destin, Florida, launched a stand-up paddle company primarily dedicated to fishing, BOTE SUP.” Bote SUPs are one of many SUP companies now making vessels for fishermen.
Time, and paddle vessel evolution, marches on.