Warmer water than usual for this time of year and lots of small brown shrimp moving into coastal estuaries have prompted Alabama and Mississippi marine resources officials to open shrimping season Wednesday morning.
That’s about two weeks earlier than has traditionally been the case, but shrimp experts in both states said test trawls last week showed that the average size of brown shrimp was at or above the 68-shrimp-per-pound count needed to legally open the season.
Traci Floyd, director of Mississippi’s Shrimp and Crab Bureau, and Alabama’s shrimp specialist Craig Newton also agreed that post-larval brown shrimp, averaging about a half-inch long, have moved into coastal nursery areas in several waves.
That could bode well for shrimpers who may see an extended season of good catches rather than having to rely on catching one peak migration as legal-size shrimp head back into the Gulf. Brown shrimp account for about 75 percent of the total shrimp catch -- and revenue -- in both states.
“It is always good news on the coast when brown shrimp season opens early because it allows Alabama shrimpers and processors to supply fresh Alabama shrimp to restaurants as business picks up for the summer,” said Alabama Marine Resources Director Chris Blankenship, who is also program administrator for the Alabama Seafood Marketing Commission. “Tourist season really begins Memorial Day weekend, so the timing is perfect this year.”
Floyd said she hopes more shrimpers will be on the water when the season opens in both states at 6 a.m.
During the period from 2006 to 2009, Floyd said aerial flyovers showed that an average of 300 shrimp boats were working opening day. Only 60 were out in 2010 as the oil spill diverted everyone’s attention. The numbers rebounded, but to only 162 boats on the first day of the 2011 season.
“Shrimpers are dealing with so many hardships -- from high fuel costs, to competition from cheap foreign imports to manmade and natural disasters,” Floyd said. “It’s such an important part of our heritage.
“I would just remind people that it’s important to buy American, to buy local.”
In Alabama, 2,681 commercial shrimping licenses were sold in 1989, but that had fallen to 697 commercial licenses by 2009. There were 2,997 recreational licenses sold in 1989, a number that fell to 839 during the oil-spill-impacted spring and summer of 2010.
Commercial license sales rebounded to 927 and recreational sales to 1,218 last year. Improved techniques have allowed those fewer shrimpers to still net total annual shrimp catches comparable to historical averages. Total annual shrimp landings average about 2 million pounds in Mississippi and 20 million pounds in Alabama, according state statistics.
“The number of shrimp boats shrimping in our waters has steadily fallen over the last 20 years,” Alabama’s Blankenship said. “When I first went to work for the Marine Resources Division, opening day of shrimp season was our busiest day of the year for fishing vessels. That has been surpassed in recent years by the opening day of red snapper season.”
Blankenship pointed out that with red snapper season opening on Friday, it will be a very busy time on Alabama waters.
For a PDF map of waters opening in Alabama, go to
http://www.outdooralabama.com/fishin.../Shrimping.pdf.
The Mississippi map is available at
www.dmr.ms.gov/marine-fisheries/shrimp-a-crab.
