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The Humble Mullet

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The Humble Mullet and the Birth of an International Industry

Nature supplied the basic factors leading to the modern-day fishing industry of Okaloosa and Walton Counties. The De Soto Canyon, located south of Destin in the Gulf of Mexico, is one of the most significant geological features in the Gulf. This deep underwater canyon splits through the continental shelf and comes near to shore. It is this nearby patch of deep water that allows a wide variety of deep-sea fish to range close to shore, and this is a fundamental reason for Destin’s modern-day deep-sea fishing industry — easy access to deep water.

Ancient Indians were the first to take advantage of the plentiful seafood in the Choctawhatchee Bay region. Around the bay, river, the Sound, and the Gulf, there were many varieties of seafood for the first inhabitants to consume. Oysters especially were popular, and the tons of oyster shell middens left behind by these first fishermen bear testimony to this fact. All across the Choctawhatchee Bay region, these piles of oyster shells mark Indian camps and settlements.

In the antebellum period, the first Anglo settlers came to the region, and formed the nucleus of a fishing industry that continues to grow. Fishermen traveling here from New England in the early 1800s first discovered the ample fish and shellfish of this region. One of the most influential of these early fishermen was Captain Leonard Destin, who began a settlement on Moreno Point near East Pass. Destin (1813-1884) was a native of New London, Connecticut. Like many other New England fishermen of the early 1800s, Destin began journeying to the Gulf of Mexico for seasonal fishing trips. Sometime around 1840, Captain Destin came to the Choctawhatchee Bay area and eventually decided to settle there permanently.

Destin married South Carolina native Martha J. McCollum, built a New England style cottage at Moreno Point, and the two began raising a family. Other fishermen settled at Moreno Point (present-day Destin), and a small fishing community developed along the bluffs which overlook East Pass. Destin and these early fishermen seined fish from Choctawhatchee Bay, Five Mile Bayou (now Cinco Bayou) and the Gulf. Using smacks, yawls, and schooners, the fishermen took their catches to markets in Pensacola. By the 1850s, the East Pass fishermen were fishing all along the Gulf Coast and were marketing their catches as far away as Mobile and New Orleans.

These fishermen continued to ply their trade through the late 1800s and early 1900s, becoming one of the most significant fishing communities on the west coast of Florida. By the 1950s, as commercial development increased, and the population began to swell, the modernized fishing fleet became more commercially successful.

The Destin Deep Sea Fishing Rodeos were created, and the community became by the mid-to-late 1900s a resort area and a favorite destination of deep-sea fishermen from around the country. This tradition continues to this day. Despite the rise of condominiums and burgeoning populations, the Destin and Choctawhatchee Bay region still has a thriving commercial fleet of fishermen, many who are descended from the original settlers of the antebellum period. The fishing heritage of the Destin area is one of the rich historical legacies of northwest Florida.

Dr. Brian R. Rucker
Professor of History
Pensacola Junior College/University of West Florida

Commercial Fishing in Okaloosa County

Fishing is often called the first industry. Commercial fishing in Florida may be more than 2,000 year old. It is the primary activity that intersects the social and economic history of our local and regional community along the Gulf Coast of Northwest Florida.

During the 1800s mullet continued to play an important role in the lives of most coastal pioneering families. If you lived on the coast, you learned how to net, splay, and smoke mullet to feed your family. This was especially crucial in times of hardship.

The first commercial industries of any size along the bayou were sawmills and turpentine stills, but from the very beginning, almost everyone fished. Since the turn of the century, commercial fishing in Northwest Florida was centered in Niceville, Valparaiso and later Destin. According to most accounts, the first in the region to fish with a net was Aaron Howell, who sold his catch from a mule-driven wagon.

In the early days, local fishermen poled flat-bottomed skiffs out into the bay at night, listened for the jumping mullet and cast their nets. They salted and preserved the fish in barrels, sold what they could, traded some to farmers from the Panhandle area and Alabama (35 miles north) for vegetables and ate the rest. The fishing industry, relying substantially on mullet, kept Boggy Bayou alive.

Ida Coon remembers when:

“Every year, farmers from Alabama would come down to the coast and buy a load of fish. We could always tell when they had sold their cotton. They’d put some greenbacks in their pocket and come down in their wagons or oxcarts to buy a mess of fish. They were only three cents a pound back then. They put those fish to pickle so they wouldn’t spoil, but after they soaked them and cooked ‘em they tasted good.”

Commercial fishing as we know it began just after the turn of the century when young Claude Meigs (who brought his bride, Cebelle Warren, from DeFuniak Springs to Boggy Bayou) started to buy fish (mostly mullet) from other fishermen and sold them in Alabama. Eventually he opened Niceville Fish Company, where fish were salted, packed in barrels, and shipped to other regional markets.

The fishing industry in Northwest Florida was devastated by the Depression. During this period, the Spence family closed their lumber mill and started a dairy operation on their farm – the current location of the climatic hanger on Eglin Air Force Base. When it became difficult to buy feed for their cows, they purchased mullet from local fishermen too and traded it to farmers in the northern part of the county for feed. The Spence children today recall large baskets of produce acquired during these years of barter.

Florida’s mullet harvest eventually leveled off, and the net fishermen found a reliable market in fish houses and small restaurants around the state that specialized in smoking mullet.

Tools and Equipment of the Gulf Coast Fisherman

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Arturo’s Vintage Photography of the Emerald Coast

Arturo Mennillo was born in New York in 1922. He first came to Florida’s Emerald Coast from New York City in the early 1940’s when he was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base. While stationed here, Arturo met and married Olivia Brunson, the daughter of a Destin fishing boat captain. Instead of entering into the family fishing business, Arturo pursued his passion of photography. He eventually opened a studio on Main Street in Fort Walton Beach where he operated as a professional photographer until he left the area in 1966 for government service in Southeast Asia. He continued taking pictures around the world until his death in 1996.

The photographs from the Arturo Studio Collection date from 1940 to 1966. Images depict the landscape, people and events of the era. Some were used in tourism promotions. Several of Arturo’s images are housed in the Library of Congress and are significant historical documents of life on the Emerald Coast.

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