When adding in anglers who ply the state's saltwaters, we're talking about a truly tidy sum of more than $6-Billion.

Folks, that's billion with a capital "B"!

And, that $6-Billion-plus figure is probably conservative since we're working from figures compiled in an American Sportfishing Association (ASA) study funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C., in 1996, based on the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Outdoor-Related Recreation (PDF version).

Given a modest inflationary increase since '96, and combined with an expansion in the number of Waltonions recruited to fishing since then, it's reasonable to conclude that figure is now closer to $7-Billion (give or take a dollar or two) as we approach the new millennium.

In 1996, 2,854,021 fisherpeople over 16 years of age spent 45,464,00 angler days fishing the Sunshine State's waters in search of a wide variety of finny targets spending more than $3,288,843,000.

This translates into the creation of 81,815 jobs in which people earned $1,711,404,281. State sales tax coffers benefitted to the tune of $197,330,658, while Federal Income Taxes amounted to $176,392,657. On top of this, the Sport Fish Restoration Excise Tax Apportionment, a user-pays, user-benefits tax that is generally strongly supported by anglers themselves, received $5,114,792 to be used for supporting Florida's fisheries conservation and management program.

According to 1996 ASA estimates, there were 35.2-million people nationally who went fishing at least once that year and, they point out, the economic effect of these angler expenditures rippled throughout local, state and national economies by sustaining old jobs and creating new ones.

As anyone can conclude, the growth of recreational fishing over the past several decades has given this popular activity a clearly defined position in the social and economic fabric of every state in the nation. Florida, with it's $6,057,317,747 fisheries economic output in 1996 ranked third among the 50 states. California ($7,127,585,206) and Texas ($6,366,580,439) edged us Crackers out for the one-two spots. It's a good probability that we will have taken over the national leadership role when the next ASA study comes out sometime in 2000, because of drastic increases of fresh and saltwater fisheries resources due to passage of common-sense laws, rules and regulations, in addition to the energetic and effective efforts of Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), which continues to emphasize far-reaching statewide habitat restoration initiatives. In 1971, the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (one of the antecedents of the FWC) pioneered the lake drawdown technology, with a very successful effort in Lake Kissimmee to overcome the depravation of years of stabilized water levels. Smokie Holcomb and Bucky Wegener were the original innovators of this technology, which remains at the heart of most major lake restoration efforts today.

Not only has Florida regained its "Bass Capital of the World" title, resident and non-resident fishing license sales, which had been relatively "flat" everywhere for more than a decade, began showing a modest upturn in Florida during 1999, according to the FWC's Director of the Freshwater Fisheries Division, Ed Moyer. He remains cautiously optimistic that license sales, which fund the vast majority of division efforts, will gradually increase again as a result of improved fishing and public recognition of the need to purchase licenses not only to be legal but also to help to continue improving the health of fisheries and aquatic resources.

Further evidence of Florida's remarkable comeback is in the number of national bass tournament organizations, including the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (BASS) and the Great Outdoors Adventure Show's national Father-Son tourney, flocking to our waters to stage competitions. This culminated on November 7, with history's richest fishing event (the Ranger M1 Millennium Bass Tournament) being held on the Winter Haven Chain of Lakes at Cypress Gardens where 400 of the world's leading professional and amateur bassers vied for $3-million in prize money and were seen by a national audience in the first ever live network television coverage for such an event.

Will Florida ever hit an annual $10-Billion fishing economic impact figure? Don't dismiss this thought. What's more, it may happen much sooner than later as fishing fraternity members throughout the world conclude that Florida affords them the best opportunity to catch the fresh or saltwater trophy they've been dreaming about, and as residents begin taking their families out fishing once again as a way of re-establishing family values and providing relaxing quality time together.

See Here for the previous economic report on Florida fishing.