Daytona Beach is of course strongly associated with motor sport but motor sport alone can’t support the entire economy of the city. Daytona Beach fishing and boat building along with related businesses are as much a part of Daytona Beach’s economy as tourism and motor sport are. Unfortunately fishing is having a tough time as an industry and it is having a knock on effect to the businesses that serve it.
There are a lot of different factors affecting Daytona Beach Fishing, not least the ability of fishing boats to actually fish. The restriction on commercial fishing mean that it is tough for Daytona beach fishing vessels to make a profit on trips as they may have to throw back a lot of the fish they catch where they are limited on overall quantities of fish, types of fish and the sizes of fish with juveniles having to be returned.
As for charter fishing for tourists that come to the city there is still demand and many people come to Daytona for the fantastic fishing in the area. Numbers of tourist are down though and many now want to spend less on fishing charters as the recession continues to affect people’s willingness or ability to spend. Demand falling will mean some charter fishing boats won’t survive and for the others tourism helps keep businesses going for part of the year but the charter boats and commercial fishing boats aren’t usually parts of the same businesses. What is more all types of fishing businesses are suffering from the increases in costs, most importantly gas prices: this means that sometimes it is cheaper for a Fishing vessel to stay in port than go out if either the amount that people are willing to pay for a fishing trip or the amount of fish they will be able to catch is too low.
Source: http://www.nsbcharters.com/2011/10/17/daytona-beach-fishing-threatened-by-economy-and-controls/ NSB Charters Blog