(Source of picture: Florida State Archives)

These Timucua men tend to an elaborate fish-weir. 

NATURE'S BOUNTY -- During Timucua times, the St. Johns teemed with fish, leaping over & thumping into canoes.  When a school of fish knocked into a small canoe, in fact, you could have even feared that it would capsize. 

Another thud you might have heard could have been a manatee.  Large herds of sea cows grazed in the shallows.  When playing, they would body surf & barrel roll.  Schools of dolphins also frolicked in the St. Johns, while the sky looked alive with gulls, ospreys, and many other seabirds.  Keeping a sharp eye on everything were bald eagles, perched in the lofty pines along the riverbanks.

WATER MAZES -- At the mouth of the St. Johns River today, the jetties keep the channel clear of obstacles.  Several hundred years ago, the native denizens of the First Coast had a different idea:  They tried to make the river's mouth as confusing as possible.  Why did the Timucua do this?  They could catch basket loads of fish & crustaceans with very intricate water traps. 

These entanglements are called fish-weirs.  Some were quite elaborate, while others were more simple in design. 

Timucua fish-weirs dotted the First Coast.  They could be seen all along the shores.  And they were visible at the mouths of streams & rivers, including those in inland areas.

The Timucua used several types of weirs:

1 -- A simple fish-weir consisted of stakes driven into a riverbed so that, when the water rushed through them, fish got trapped. 

2 -- Another weir consisted of a mesh of tree branches bound with vines.  It too would ensnare fish. 

3 -- One other type of weir worked a little differently:  A fisherman ran nets between stakes, and the stakes were arranged in something of a funnel shape.  This weir herded fish into a small corral in the middle, where they could be either speared or caught with round cast nets.  (Florida Indians weaved their nets from reed grass or palm trunk fibers.) 

Some fish-weirs proved remarkably long.  They measured up to 750 feet, more than the length of two football fields.  When the Spanish fired a musket ball, it could barely reach the ends of these traps. 

All in all, fish-weirs required a lot of time & energy to build & maintain. They proved the principle means by which Native Americans caught fish.