my dad raised me shrimping from shore in the 80’s because we didn’t have a boat
my parents aren’t from here, so he asked around at work and elsewhere for pointers. we did the big drop net with smoked herring off the battery and i can’t ever smell one again without good memories, food lion on JI always used to have them in styro trays and i’d go smell them just to relive it
mostly we went over the seawall where the crab house is now on wappoo cut, was a pretty good walk from the office buildings on maybank before the rest of that got developed. part of it was a field, so we’d cut poles out of the cane that grew there otw. i’d jump over and he’d pass the dogs and gear down to me and sis, then we’d try to cover the bottom of a basket with creek shrimp. muddy as hell and loved every minute of it, barely even remember the mosquitoes although i’m sure they were horrible
fast forward a little while and it’s me and a buddy in our 20’s getting cooler after cooler on the weekdays out of our boats and sharing with all our family and friends when our freezers were full, those were the heydays
fast forward another little while and now it’s me waking up with the aching back because i want to see it keep going
don’t know how much we got and don’t really care, this one wasn’t about the meat at all. made some great memories.
we cruised the harbor and then set up on our spot with 2 poles and anchored tight between them.
chose edge of Ft J flat in 4’ at low because it is close, easy, and familiar. tide and current never ran much when we were there, was a tiny tide anyway and the 7yr old tagged out around 8:45 which i expected. sounds from Henk’s CB report like they might’ve turned on right after i pulled poles.
size was mixed with mostly mediums and a few really impressive ones. it might be 1/6 cooler, will figure it out when i sit down to watch some college ball in a bit. they especially liked getting to eat their custom made publix subs while watching the sunset, and also playing with the bioluminescence in between picking up shrimp. they were tuckered when we hit the hill… me too!
