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Honored and humbled to be featured in the BBC, The News-Press, Naples Daily News, and Gulfshore Life magazine. This small business of ours, and the family it supports, will cherish these for a long time to come. It’s a privilege to be a part of this community, to nourish and celebrate it, and to share our story. Click below or visit our press page to learn more.
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The Fisherman's Daughter offers heritage Florida seafood caught and prepared in fishing family tradition—from blue crab to bottarga. We believe in traceable, sustainable seafood from ocean to table and encourage you to know your fisherman.
As one of the last mullet fishing families in the region, our Gulf Coast pride is rooted deeply in all we do. Heirloom recipes span our heritage and excite us still.
Smoked mullet, in particular, is a passion of ours. Well known for its oily and flavorful meat, mullet is the only fish with a gizzard, allowing it to filter out ocean impurities and toxins. The resultant flavor is rich and quite unique, transforming an otherwise humble fish into a bit of Gulf Coast magic. Packed full of Omega-3s, the mighty mullet remains one of the healthiest fish you can eat and is among the most sustainable fisheries in the world—an annual commercial harvest can be traced back to just a few dozen spawning mullet mamas. And it’s darn delicious, any which way you cook it.
Centuries-old practices rooted in the wilds of the past remind us that when we say ‘sustainability,’ we trace circles around ‘tradition.’ Nets sewn and mended, passed from one generation to the next, with fisherfolk dating back to the Calusa telling young ones to watch where the silver tails turn. Fishing families dot our coastline still, tethered one to the other, like constellations.
Lightly seasoned with a homemade spice blend then slow smoked over natural wood for 6 hours, our smoked mullet is a celebration of local and an ode to home.
As travel writer Robert Moss noted, “you can get New Orleans-style gumbo in Boston and Baltimore-style crab cakes in San Diego, but smoked mullet is one of those rare regional delicacies that can still be found almost exclusively where it originated. It’s also a splendid example of how a little-prized fish can be transformed into something delicious and wonderful through nothing more than smoke and time.”
Our Story
The Fisherman's Daughter is Chanda Jamieson, a writer, poet and daughter of third generation commercial fisherman and crabber Robert Jamieson.
My family has caught and prepared Southwest Florida seafood for several generations, instilling in me from a young age a sense of family tradition and responsibility, a desire to celebrate that which has nourished us for so long.
Beginning as a nickname, The Fisherman’s Daughter was a way to refer to an awkward little girl who to her first grade show and tell brought her Daddy and a cooler full of mullet. That nickname runs deep, is filled with pride, and still points to the beauty, the absolute wonder of a life lived with reverence for these waters. The sustenance it offers, the life it provides, the earned living and the magic.
That same pride courses through all we do, from catch to kitchen, pointing always towards that Gulf Coast magic. Waking at 4AM to troll the waterways until daybreak. Tying the bow to a mangrove while the noon sun presents itself. Seeking out the day's catch beneath sun and shadow.
It is our honor to catch and prepare these fish which have supported us for so many years. We think you'll love it just as much as we do. -Chanda
Now available in our Shop—Ghost Horizons, a book of poetry and prints, and a collaboration between artist Andy Owen and me.
“Two lifetimes spent on the open water are behind Ghost Horizons, a new book from Naples artist Andy Owen and fourth-generation fisher and local poet Chanda Jamieson. The collaboration began in 2024 with exhibitions at BIG ARTS and Arts Bonita. As the pair assembled their works—Andy’s haunting, high-contrast solar plates, woodcuts and prints paired with Chanda’s resonant stanzas—they watched Round Key slip beneath the rising tides. The resulting exhibit, Ghost Horizons, captured the slow and steady loss, honoring our coastal landscapes while reckoning with devastation from hurricanes and human interference.
Now assembled into a 75-page book by Florida Gulf Coast University, Ghost Horizons serves at once as a love letter and a call to protect what makes our region unique. The book honors Andy, who passed away in June following a sudden cancer diagnosis and is the final word from a man whose work speaks for itself.” —Emma Witmer, Gulfshore Life.