Tag Archives: Shrimp Season
Shrimp season reopens in the Gulf of Mexico, Aransas Pass fleet heads that way
Shrimp season is back in full swing at Conn Brown Harbor now that state and federal waters have reopened to commercial shrimping. It’s a busy time for shrimpers after being closed for over two months. “Boats are coming out of Palacios, Aransas Pass, Brownsville, Galveston. All the different ports,” Aransas Pass local Cecil Robles said. An armada of shrimp boats is off to the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to fill their nets with tiny treasures. Robles works at Conn Brown Harbor, where he fuels shrimp boats for Erickson and Jensen seafood packers. “The next few days, we’ll start to hear from them about what they’re catching and how abundant the fish are,” Robles said. Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:59
Shrimp season in Mississippi to open on May 29
Beginning at a tentative date of Wednesday at 6 a.m., shrimpers possessing the proper licensure or permits will be able to navigate state territorial waters in hopes of hauling in massive loads of the crustaceans. Opening date could potentially be postponed if sampling conducted by MDMR staff indicates the movement of large swaths of juvenile brown shrimp into Mississippi waterways. Recreational and commercial shrimp season north of the Intracoastal Waterway will close at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2025. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:15
Shrimpers struggling as season draws to an end
“When the season is good, we bring in around 20 to 30 [thousand] pounds a week,” said Victor Le, a deckhand on the Captain Can. “We have to sell all of it to get a little profit margin, but not as much as it used to be.”Le has worked in the Gulf for seven years. But it does not take a seasoned veteran to see a startling trend. “Everybody is struggling right now because of the price. The price is so down, the import is affecting us mainly. Undercuts our prices and everybody loses when comparing to import prices,” he said. more, video, <<click to read<< 11:35
Shrimp season may be slow, opens June 20
Georgia’s shrimp season should start well when it opens June 20, but scientists and shrimpers expect it will taper off as fall settles in the Golden Isles. That has been the case the past couple of years when shrimpers are allowed to trawl in state waters, which extend to three miles offshore, said Frank Owens, owner of City Market in Brunswick. He expects to see the same thing this year when unloading boats at the market’s docks in Brunswick. There are some of the desirable, plump, white roe shrimp being caught already. But how good those catches are and for how long that quality lasts is hard to tell, Owens said. “Today I unloaded some boats that were about half white shrimp and half brown shrimp,” Owens said this week. “These last few years, spring has been good, but fall has been a bit off.” >click to read< 09:18
South Carolina shrimp harvest opens fully
After a cool spring in South Carolina, the majority of white shrimp in coastal waters have reproduced — and officials at the S.C. Department of Natural Resources have given the go-ahead for shrimp season to open in full. Commercial shrimp trawling opened in all legal South Carolina waters at 8 a.m. June 1. The trawling season in Georgia waters was scheduled to open at the same time. Shrimping season in South Carolina typically starts in spring with the opening of a small subset of waters, called provisional areas, that allow shrimpers to take advantage of the harvest offshore while still protecting the majority of shrimp that have yet to spawn. >click to read< 08:05
Alabama: Gulf Coast Shrimp Season Opens June 1st
June 1 will begin like any other day for Alabama’s shrimp, until the boats start chugging and the nets start dropping. On that day, all bets are off if you’re a shrimp. The Marine Resources Division of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources announced (last) Monday that all inside waters not permanently closed by law or regulation will be open for shrimp fishing beginning June 1. Shrimp swimming in Mobile Bay, Bon Secour Bay, Mississippi Sound, Perdido Bay, Arnica Bay, Wolf Bay and Little Lagoon will be up for grabs on that day through the end of the year. >click to read< 15:44
Mississippi shrimp season in state of uncertainty thanks to storms, heavy rains
At Forte Seafood in Pass Christian, they say ever since Hurricane Ida came through, the white shrimp have been pretty big and plentiful. That makes up for an awful brown shrimp season, as those shrimp never got a chance to grow due to low salinity from heavy rains. “Starting out, the brown shrimp never really grew. They were all around 50-60 to 60-70 count for the majority of the summer,” said Jeremy Forte. “Once the storm came through, it actually made them bigger. I don’t know if it’s different shrimp from somewhere else or what,,, Video, >click to read< 14:50
Opening of 2021 Mississippi Sound shrimp season could be delayed
Coast shrimpers will have to be a little more patient before they can drop their nets in the Mississippi Sound this summer. Rainy weather during the last two months has caused salinity levels and lower water temperatures in our local waters, meaning it could push the start of the 2021 shrimp season back a few weeks. “With brown shrimp, two of the factors that influence growth are water temperature and salinity,,, “Once these rains stop – if they stop and the salinity starts to rise,,, video, >click to read< 19:17
What’s good for America?!!: Impact of Foreign Workers on American Jobs a Contentious Issue in US
The colossal impact of immigrant labor in the United States extends to Louisiana’s struggling fisheries. “I’ve been hiring workers from Mexico, Honduras and everywhere else for 20 years,” Dean Blanchard, president of Blanchard Seafood, Inc. George Barisich, a fisherman in the suburbs of New Orleans, Louisiana, draws a distinction between lawful and undocumented immigration. He voted twice for former President Donald Trump, who 
championed restrictive immigration policies. Even so, Barisich agrees with Blanchard that immigrants play a vital role in his industry. “During shrimping season, we need legal immigrants to work in those factories,” he said. “It’s hard work, it’s decent pay, and it’s stuff young Americans just don’t want to do anymore.” >click to read< 11:05
Maryland Governor Calls for more HB-2 Visas – Governor Larry Hogan urged federal officials to make more H-2B Nonimmigrant Temporary Worker Program visas available to help protect Maryland’s $355 million seafood industry and supply chain. >click to read<
Shrimp Season begins in Georgia waters
Darrell Gale and his crew hit the Darien River Tuesday night and had an early morning for the start of shrimp harvest season. Gale said he had a good catch, but it could have been better. The captain caught more small fish than he would have liked, but still ended up catching about 1,000 pounds of shrimp. However, that’s 2,000 pounds less than last year’s season opening. “They waited a little long to open the beaches and the smaller shrimps came out. Well…you don’t get as much profit with the smaller shrimps,” Gale said. Video, >click to read< 10:02
Average forecast as shrimp season opens May 27 in South Carolina
Commercial shrimp trawling will open in all legal South Carolina waters at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, May 27, 2020. Georgia officials have not yet set an opening date for trawling season in their state waters. Shrimping season in South Carolina typically starts in spring with the opening of a small subset of waters, called provisional areas, that allow shrimpers to take advantage of the harvest offshore while still protecting the majority of shrimp that have yet to spawn. This year, following a mild winter, South Carolina’s provisional trawling areas opened unusually early, on April 15, 2020. >click to read< 22:38
A shrimping standoff
The shrimp season officially opened off the Oregon coast on April 1, but local shrimp boats are still sitting idle at the docks because of a failure of the shrimpers and processing plants to come to terms on price. It’s not an unusual situation for local fisheries to become stalled over the price paid for the catch, but the reality is that it’s tough for all concerned — local fishermen, workers at fish plants that are sitting idle and owners of the fish plants themselves. Nobody makes money while the boats remain at the docks. To make matters worse, boats from out of the area,,, >click to read<16:42
Mississippi Shrimp season gets underway with more than 250 boats lowering nets
Over 250 shrimp boats scoured the Mississippi Sound early Wednesday morning as the 2018 shrimp season officially got underway. Mississippi Department of Marine Resources officials conducted an aerial survey and found 254 boats lowering their nets in search of their first catch of the season. “We talked to the fishermen and early reports show moderate-to-low numbers of 40-50 count brown shrimp,” >click to read<14:30
Georgia shrimping season spawns unusual crop: optimism
The rope that dangled down into the hold of the Jo Ann B from a small square opening in the deck suddenly went taut. The winch overhead hummed Friday as it strained, slowly raising a 55-gallon plastic can loaded to the brim with Coastal Georgia’s most-prized saltwater delicacy. The bounty of wild Georgia shrimp swayed high above the boat Friday morning, then swung over to the City Market docks. Jake Wilson took it from there, manhandling the huge bucket of white roe shrimp and dumping the catch into a spacious water trough for processing at the City Market plant on Brunswick’s East River. This process repeats itself many times before Capt. Joe Williams’ Jo Ann B had unloaded its plentiful catch for the day. Entering the third week of the 2017 shrimping season in Georgia’s state waters, the folks who ply the coast to bring the Golden Isles these delicious crustaceans are feeling something strange: optimism. click here to read the story 11:18
‘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
Louisiana’s Upcoming shrimp season could be similar to last year
LDWF biologist Jeff Marx told the Shrimp Task Force Wednesday in Houma that while he doesn’t have the data to make predictions on how the upcoming season will unfold, he can show parallels to previous years. That leads to the conclusion that this year’s season has the characteristics of 2015, which was a hot year. Marx said small shrimp aren’t being seen in the basins yet. “It’s a good spread, but things change. If we get a big influx of small shrimp, it changes things. There’s a big difference between a cold year and what’s going on this year,” he said. Two things worth keeping an eye on are the “huge discharge” of water from the Mississippi River in the early parts of the year and the salinity levels. Read the rest here 08:31
Great news for Georgia Shrimpers! Warm, calm waters enhancing shrimp season
Georgia’s commercial shrimpers are keeping their fingers crossed. The 2015 fall shrimping season has hit a good note, and is proving to be light-years ahead of where the fishing industry stood two years ago. “2013 was the worst year in history for shrimping off Georgia waters,” said Marc Frischer, a professor at the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography who studies area fisheries. “It was declared a federal disaster.” It was a devastating year for the industry, he said. Read the article here 07:59
Fate of shrimp fishery will be decided soon
Fishermen wondering whether there will be a shrimp season this winter won’t have long to wait for an answer. On Monday, Dec. 7, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section and Advisory Panel will meet in Portsmouth, N.H., to decide whether boats from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts will be allowed to this winter. Last year, the regulators imposed a moratorium on fishing because scientists said the shrimp stock was on the verge of collapse. Read the article here 13:18
Shrimp Season Anomaly: season interruption, low prices make tough year for Mississippi Fishermen
Mississippi fishermen remain intent on harvesting this year’s shrimp crop in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico despite 
and restarted. Dave Burrage, Mississippi State University Extension professor of marine resources at the Coastal Research and Extension Center in Biloxi, said the shrimp season first opened June 3, closed June 19 when shrimp were too small, and then reopened July 13. “This season has been an anomaly so far,” Burrage said. The Mississippi season opened with 310 boats this year, down from 368 boats on opening day in 2014. Read the rest here 12:43
Calhoun County, Texas – Shrimp season devastated by freshwater, Judge signs declaration of disaster
The shrimp boat captain sat at the helm, listening to other captains talk over the radio about the catch they brought in the day before. After subtracting the cost of fuel, one captain had $75 to split with his deckhand. “Seventy-five dollars is nothing,” said Capt. Jose Luis Cruz. “There’s no shrimp. The freshwater pushed the shrimp to the Gulf.” An overabundance of rainfall not only devastated the livelihood of farmers but also hurt those who harvest from the sea. Read the rest here 07:34
Shrimp season to close in some La. waters
The 
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says the inshore shrimp season will close at 6 a.m. on Thursday in the Terrebonne Basin except for portions of lower Timbalier Bay, Terrebonne Bay, Lake Pelto and Pelican Lake that directly border the Gulf of Mexico. [email protected]
Shrimp Season Set Next Week in Portion Of Louisiana Offshore Territorial Waters
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced shrimp season will open in a portion of territorial waters between Caillou Boca and the Atchafalaya River Ship Channel, next Tuesday, April 16 at 6 a.m. continued
