Tag Archives: Shem Creek shrimper Tommy Edwards
Blame the cold winter: There’s still no date for the opening of South Carolina shrimp season
South Carolina’s commercial shrimp season — already nearly a month behind its average opening date — might not open any time soon. The bright spot is that a delayed spring season usually turns into a good fall catch. S.C. Department of Natural Resources biologists began another round of sample trawls Tuesday checking whether the spring shrimp had spawned and whether the summer crop had grown to good size. Off Charleston, they found a mixed net.,,, Shem Creek shrimper Tommy Edwards, who took the biologists offshore, still found a reason for some optimism. >click to read<12:46
Cold waters, few shrimp means delay in South Carolina season opening
Two years ago, Greg Herald and two partners decided to try to beat the odds. They bought a shrimp boat and began working from Shem Creek. They wanted to become part of the traditional Lowcountry fleet that is struggling just to hang on. Today, the partnership has liquidated. The veteran commercial fisherman among them, Vince Shavender, has gone home to North Carolina. Herald plans to continue selling shrimp from a roadside stand — local catch if he can get it. But last year he traveled as far as North Carolina and Georgia to find enough to sell. The third partner, who bought out the boat, didn’t return phone messages asking if he is still in the shrimping business. >click to read<10:32
‘Phenomenal’ shrimp season still playing out in the Lowcountry
It’s the cold end of January and that means the end of commercial shrimping is..umm..maybe not even going to happen. It’s phenomenal, said Mel Bell, S.C. Department of Natural Resources fisheries management director. “This is the latest I’ve heard us close. The size they’re bringing in out there we’ve never seen before” this time of year, he said. Not only that, but “provisional” waters will remain open another week. Those are waters roughly beyond two miles out, between the nearshore state waters and federal waters even farther out. And federal waters don’t close at all unless it’s a bad winter. Lowcountry boats have been slaying them in those provisional and federal waters. “Definitely,” said Shem Creek shrimper Tommy Edwards, who has been pulling in shrimp so big they’re weighing out at 13 to the pound. “We’re doing better now than we were when the season was going strong. Right now we’re looking at shrimping all the way through February. We’re not going to close if conditions are right.” Read the story here 13:40
