preserved for posterity) got together
and made themselves a trawl, pattern¬
ing it after the one the biologists were
using. They were not too skilled in the
handling of it, and their boat wasn't
too well rigged for the job; but soon
they were catching prawn. They were
catching a good many of them, too —
so many, in fact, that local markets
couldn’t begin to handle them all. and
it became necessary to find new mar¬
kets inland. This proved to be not at
all hard to do. either, as the public
soon fell in love with the delicious taste
of this wonderful new tidbit from the
sea.
Big Money-Maker
North Carolina found itself with a
brand new and quite profitable fishery.
sold ex-vessel to waiting buyers the
proceeds fatten the shrimpers' pocket-
books to the tunc of better than $2
million. Small wonder it is. then, that
shrimp arc considered a "golden" har¬
vest by a lot of salty North Carolinians
whose business it is to reap it. and that
the fishery has for many a year now
ranked first money-wise in the state's
commercial fisheries.
The two principal varieties of shrimp
caught in North Carolina waters are
Penaeus seiiferus and Penaeus aztecus.
which the shrimpers know, respec¬
tively. as the brown and the white. A
third species. Penaeus duorarum, re¬
ferred to as the "spotted." or "pink."
shrimp is also taken in good quantities.
The spotted, as well as the brown.
Everybody Likes S lir imp.
A Golden Harvest From the Sea
«»/
FRANK
Л.
MONTGOMERY, JR.
One fine summer morning back in
1915. a biologist from the fisheries re¬
search station at Beaufort, using a
small otter trawl, was busily engaged in
a routine search for some marine speci¬
mens in the open sea a short way off
Beaufort bar.
Л
couple of local waterdogs who
were lending a hand were very much
interested in the proceedings — and
more so. it must be admitted, every
time the little trawl brought up from
the bottom at the end of a "drag" a
few giant sized shrimp with the usual
catch of starfish, sea urchins, crabs,
small fish and other sea creatures.
Shrimp as big as those being caught
in this government fellow's trawl were
something new thereabouts. Nobody
had ever shrimped the offshore coastal
waters where they were to be found,
having always before confined their
operations to using long haul seines
and small one-man "push" nets, solely
to the more protected inside waters of
the sounds, creeks and estuaries in the
vicinity.
However, as news kept circulating
around of the big shrimp (they called
them "prawn") the government boat
was catching outside, two or three of
the more enterprising local fishermen
(whose names, alas, have not been
to
one that has continued to grow un¬
til today shrimping in North Carolina
is an industry of major importance.
Just how many of the delicious little
Crustacea the big trawls of the
shrimpers will bring up during any
given season varies, but the average
annual catch is estimated to be about
five million pounds. And when they're
The shrimp, together with smoll lish ond other
morine life, ore tropped in the e*treme end, or
"pocket," of the trowl os it rs pulled slowly olong
on the sco bottom. Here the net hos been hoisted
oboord the shrimper.
shrimp arc generally caught at night,
while the white is taken mainly during
daylight hours. All three taste about
the same; all look about the same, ex¬
cept for color variations. All species
grow’ rapidly, and while shrimpers take
the greater proportion of a season’s
catch in the open sea the catch in the
coastal sounds and bays is far from
being insignificant.
The Shrimp Fleet
The boats used by the shrimpers
range in si/e from small outboard-
powered skiffs used by hundreds
of tidewater folks wherever there’s
enough water to float them, to the big
outside fellows equipped with the latest
gear to make their operation more ef¬
ficient and profitable. Most of the
deepwater craft set their owners back
many a thousand dollars and, as a
shrimper needs plenty of power to drag
its heavy trawl along the bottom, heavy
duty diesels will be found in the ma¬
jority of them. But regardless of size or
cost, all the boats have one thing in
common: the search for the same odd
little marine creature that has over the
years brought them so much in the way
of material things.
If returns to the shrimpers, on the
average, are often considerable they
THE STATE. October 15. 1970
