Tag Archives: Jimmy Driggers
Still reeling from Ian, Florida shrimpers are desperate to get back on the water
Jimmy Driggers, 85, got into the fishing business when he was just 13 years old. He’s a shrimper in Fort Myers, Fla. “I was a mullet fisherman, [a] commercial fisherman in my younger days,” he said. Driggers walks with a prosthetic leg from an injury he sustained on his boat about a decade ago. It’s decorated with a sea lighthouse. He owns one shrimping boat the F/V Miz Shirley named after his wife. It can carry 50,000 pounds of shrimp. Driggers said the industry has been hurting for decades, and that he was paid more back in the 1980’s than he is today. Fuel prices have skyrocketed. Then came Hurricane Ian. It pushed The Miz Shirley half onto a seawall and half was left in the water –- unusable. >click to read< 07:28
