FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. – Fernandina Beach is known for its rich history and beautiful beaches. But what many people don’t know is that it’s also been dubbed the “Birthplace of the Modern Shrimping Industry” thanks to a book by Gray Edenfield.
News4JAX spoke to Michael Adams, his son David and their friend Roger Linville, as they were preparing to hit the water for a few hours to catch some shrimp.
“I’m out here in nature. This is my desk and I don’t have to listen to nobody,” Adams said.
Adams, who’s 76 years old, has been shrimping in the waters off Fernandina Beach, Yulee, and other parts of Northeast Florida for nearly 54 years.
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A passion he’s turned into a business.
“What I do is I throw my nets over. I’ve got what they call a cork line,“ Michael Adams said. ”They call it a modified goose or extended tongue. The net will fix you about 3 to 5 inches off the bottom, and I’ve got what they call a tickler chain. It runs about 10 to 8 inches in front of the net. And it tickles the shrimp and makes them jump, and when they jump, they jump in the net.”
Shrimping is something Adams grew up around because his father was also a shrimper.
“When he wasn’t working, he would go and shrimp. Back then, you didn’t need a license, no regs, rules or anything. We’d catch crabs and shrimp,” Adams said.
Adams said his childhood, the memories of shrimping and the connection to Fernandina Beach bring him joy.
“It was a lot of fun going down there as a kid. Watching the shrimp boats come in and talking to the people and everything,” Adams said.
According to “The Best of Amelia Now,” a quarterly magazine, before the 1900s, shrimping in this area was significantly lower than in other areas.
In 1897, fishermen in Louisiana caught 4.5 million pounds of the seafood while the “Florida East Coast’ catch was 39,000 pounds.
Between 1903 and 1910, a Sicilian who moved to Fernandina Beach named Sollecito Salvatore, later known as Mike Salvador, helped change those numbers. He did that by putting an engine on a rowboat, which helped him pull his fishing net in deep water and increased his fish catch.
“That revolutionized the industry,” Nick Deonas, whose family built boats, said.
Deonas is a Fernandina Beach native whose family contributed to the area’s shrimping industry through boat building.
At one point, the 78-year-old said his grandfather and dad had their own wooden boat-building business open at the same time.
And Deonas said another thing that helped the Fernandina shrimp industry boom was the adaptation of the otter trawl — a bag-like net with iron-weighted doors, to hold the net open on the ocean floor.
In 1915, the Burbank family in Fernandina—who still make nets today—started making fishing nets.
And in 1918, fishermen throughout the Florida East Coast reported almost 9 million pounds of shrimp.
It’s unclear how much money shrimping brought into the area during that time and still does today.
But just last year, JaxToday reported that the annual Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival has a $15 million economic impact on Fernandina Beach and Amelia Island.
However, Deonas said the shrimping industry in this area is far from what it used to be, and will probably never return.
“In order to have a shrimping industry, number one, you’ve got to have a place for your boats to tie up,” Deonas said. “Secondly, if you went out, if you and I had a boat right now today, and we went out and caught 1,500 pounds, where are you going to take them? There’s no fish house to there’s no packing house to, to accept them, to get them ready to ship. You gotta have fuel docks. You gotta have ice docks.”
Adams thinks it’s also an industry that will probably never return to what it once was in the area. He said imported shrimp are taking over, and they don’t taste as good.
“A local wild-caught shrimp is sweeter; it’s got a sweet taste to it,” Adams said.
After three hauls, Adams didn’t catch as many shrimp as he wanted.
“It’s fishing, you never know what you’re going to catch,” Adams said.
And for any other sea life that isn’t shrimp and gets caught in the net, he makes sure to throw it back in the water as quickly as possible.
