Tag Archives: Holden Beach

NC fisherman catches rare all-blue crab

Dean Bowling has pulled in thousands of crabs from thousands of crab pots during his decades-long career as a commercial fisherman. This week, for the first time in his life, he caught one that caused him to stop what he was doing and call his daughter, Jillian. “‘You’re not gonna believe what I caught in the trap today,'” Jillian Bowling recalled her dad saying. “So I said, ‘Send me a picture’ and he sent me a picture and I could not believe my eyes. I called him immediately and said, ‘Do you know what you have? That’s amazing. That’s one in a billion.'” >click to read< 17:41

F/V Big Earl – Shrimp boat on Holden Beach finally back in the ocean

A shrimp boat that called the Holden Beach shoreline home for the past week is free. With the help of an excavator and high tide, Big Earl was dislodged from the beach Thursday morning and slowly made its way out into the ocean. “It was a miracle, like a baby giraffe being born, I was like come on Earl, go go go, don’t let the lines break,” said Sheila King, a vacationer who has been watching the beach boat for a week. (the people really rallied behind the fisherman, and I would say Big Earl is now an Ambassador.) Video, >click to read<19:06

Shrimp boat runs aground along Holden Beach coast

What started as a normal day on the job turned into a bit of nightmare for one shrimp boat captain. Big Earl, the shrimp boat, washed up on the beach in Holden Beach. Boat Captain, Virgil Coleman said he got in trouble around 4 p.m. Thursday. Coleman said he, along with another person had just started shrimping when the winds caused a net to get stuck in the boat’s propeller. The current winds pushed the boat closer to shore overnight and eventually beached the ship on the east end of the island. Video, >click to read<14:49