NE Florida has the great advantage of being near Georgia which has the largest fish nursery in the US. I agree, of course, lots of game. What's the deal with the local fish names? Can you give us a few starting with yellowtail snapper (real name)?
I don't have any favorites. There was a time, in the 1970's, when I would have named VA Beach. Before the days of diver head boats and LORAN, the offshore wrecks were absolutely crawling with tautog, jacks and all manner of critters.
The bridge tunnel area contained so many stripers, tautog, flounder, sheepshead, bluefish (thousands upon thousands) that spearfishing was a done deal even for a novice, that is if the water was clear which is seldom. My all time record flounder, 13 pounds, had plenty of company. The sea trout (weakfish) cannot be approached by a tank diver. On summer, freediving, I landed about a dozen in the 5-10 pound range.
The tank diving has always been so so. Not much to see except some wrecks which are hard to access being 30 miles off shore. However, freediving/spearfishing for king mackeral and spanish mackeral, and , of course amberjack, was the best anywhere I've seen, and I've seen a lot. That could be done over inshore wrecks and towers because the surface vis was usually better than the murky bottom.
Nowadays, there are still fish to be had but, face it, near everybody seems to have a boat these days and there are traffic problems; also there are more restrictions.