Perhaps boosters can be excused for their habit of calling Florida "The Fishing Capital of the World"—but there's money behind the brag.

Big money.

That's why any talk of closing off the seas surrounding Florida to fishing—even temporarily—sends ripples across a mighty big pond. Estimates vary, but the combined worth of the state's commercial and recreational fishing industries is in the neighborhood of $8 billion annually. To put the figure into perspective, the state's vaunted citrus industry tallies around $9 billion.

On the recreational side of the ledger, the Sunshine state, with its 1,197 miles of coastline, dwarfs all other states in the size and value of its recreational fishery. A 2001 study funded by the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) put the economic impact for recreational saltwater fishing in Florida at more than $5.4 billion. That figure includes nearly $1.5 billion in salaries and wages for 59,418 jobs, and $239 million in federal income tax. Those numbers were generated by 2,436,720 licensed saltwater anglers-twice the number found in any other state (and countless resident anglers are exempt from licensing).

Commercially, the figures are impressive as well. In 2001, the last year the numbers were crunched by the National Marine Fisheries Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Florida ranked sixth nationally in the value of commercial catches alone-at $195 million. This market value hardly reveals the true economic impact of commercial fishing to the Sunshine State. When salaries, taxes, capital investments and so forth are factored in, Florida's legal seafood trade amounts to a business worth $2.3 billion, according to a 2001 study by University of Florida economists.

What's missing from the stats are reliable estimates of the value to the state—and the nation—of the Gulf's enormous grouper fishery, much of which is the target of FSU research aimed at protecting this fishery from overharvest. In 2001, the federal government estimated that more than 90 percent of the nation's grouper came from Florida that year, and most of that came from the Gulf of Mexico.

Commercial landings for all species of grouper in the Gulf of Mexico for 2001 were estimated (no one knows exact figures) to be roughly 12 million pounds with a total market value of $25.8 million. Of that haul, Florida gets considerably more than the lion's share—that year, the state's catch was pegged at 11.8 million pounds—more than 96 percent of all grouper caught and sold from Gulf waters.

Red and gag grouper account for the vast majority of Gulf grouper landings with a combined total harvest in 2001 reported at 10.3 million pounds with a market value of $21.6 million. Almost all of those fish were landed in Florida. The state's combined gag and red grouper landings were reported to be roughly 10.3 million pounds and worth $21.5 million.

A fascinating bit of research—never attempted—would be to determine the economic impact of the Gulf's recreational grouper fishery on the Sunshine State. Federal statistics say that sports anglers catch nearly 70 percent of the Gulf's gags each year, and nearly 30 percent of the red grouper—although precise numbers are elusive because of reporting anomalies (e.g. in the state's Big Bend Gulf coast, which prides itself on its nearshore grouper fishery, creel checks of sports anglers by fishery census-takers are exceedingly rare).

Whatever the case, each year thousands of "weekend warriors" from Panama City to Key West hunt for grouper, sometimes exclusively. It's common for a typical "grouper groper" to drop $25,000 or more on a boat capable of fishing offshore grouper "holes" and spend additional thousands each year on taxes, insurance, maintenance, fuel, bait, ice, tackle, slip rentals, coastal hotels and restaurants and—so rumor has it—beer. — P.N.