As its beaches recede, Florida shores up private ownership

With his straw hat, rubber waders, and a quartet of 12-foot fishing poles, Peter Schilling is the modern version of an ancient archetype: the surf fisherman, casting knee-deep in the ocean foam.

At least twice a week, Mr. Schilling casts the breakers for pompano, whiting, or spotted trout, driving up to Amelia Island from his home in Jacksonville.

And like millions of beach lovers throughout the United States, Schilling understands in his gut what the Florida Supreme Court declared in 1939,  that the beaches of the Atlantic ocean are "a public highway" for pedestrians and bathers who enjoyed ancient customary rights to them. 

For lot of beachside landowners, however, this romantic view of the beach as public thoroughfare is a bygone relic. They really don't want a guy in rubber waders casting in their breakers – or loud, litter-dropping spring

An 'ancient right'Private property and customary useA controversy in Walton CountyPreserving public access