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S. Carolina shrimp boats
report dismal season
MOREHEAD
CITY - Shrimping has just been horrible
this year. At
least that's what those in the shrimp industry
are saying about the New River.
" We've
been in business for 63 or 64 years," said
Gig Everett, part owner of Everett Seafood
in Sneads Ferry. "We've
never seen a year like this before."
And
the start of the season wasn't too good in
other waters of the state, either, though
it's starting to pick up a bit now, said
Chip Grice of Davis, who trawls in Core Sound.
"We
had a cool spring and I think that's what
sort of delayed everything," Grice
said.
David
Taylor, head of Fisheries Management with
the Division of Marine Fisheries, said
that's pretty much what he has heard from
fishermen statewide. In a few places, shrimp
fishermen have done well at certain times,
but it has not been consistent, he said.
"It's
just been a spotty thing," Taylor
said. "Overall I think it's not been
very good."
State
records of dockside seafood sales back up
what the fishermen are saying. Preliminary
totals show fishermen landed 48,358 pounds
of shrimp statewide through
May this year. That's less than half the
115,825 pounds fishermen had brought to the
docks by the same time last year and 80 percent
less than the previous five-year average
of 241,495 pounds. Grice
said the slump continued right on into July,
but picked up with the full moon
last month.
"The
last couple of weeks have been a whole lot
better," Grice said.
He
is hoping the same occurs with the full moon
this month. But
Everett has yet to see the shrimping pick
up in the New River. About
four of the boats that normally pack out
of his fish house are working in South
Carolina now, he said. Another one is in
Georgia and one is in Pamlico Sound. One
boat is not even shrimping, but scalloping
in Virginia, he said.
"There's
just no shrimp here," Everett
said.
Some
fishermen have tried going out for a day,
but find the catch not enough to pay
for the fuel, Everett said. One
boat did bring in about 356 pounds of shrimp
Thursday, what he called a decent
catch, but they were small, 36 to 40 shrimp
per pound, he said.
"You've
got some people saying everything's just
running late," Everett noted. "I
hope that's what it is."
Grice
said many fishermen in his area found other
jobs when the shrimping was not good
this spring so that only about a dozen boats
are working Core Sound now when there would
normally be 30 to 40.
"
The
scarcity of boats is helping us out - the
one's that are shrimping," Grice
said.
With
dockside shrimp prices low and fuel costs
high, it would be hard to make a profit
with more boats shrimping, he said.
Source:
Patricia Smith
The New Bern Sun Journal
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