i REALIZE SOME OF YOU RECREATIONAL BAITERS AND NON BAITERS HAVE HAD A FAIR SEASON SO FAR BUT THE COMMERCIAL SECTOR IS SO FAR OFF OF NORMAL IT IS SCARY. i JUST GOT SOME LANDINGS DATA FROM DNR AND FOR SOME EXAMPLES 2012 LANDINGS FOR THE MONTH OF aUG. WAS247,989 LBS AND sEPT 2012 WAS 756,392 LBS. WHILE 2013 AUG UST WAS 65,797LBS. AND SEPT 2012 IS 45,557 LBS FOR THE COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY IN THE STATE. IN THE LAST 10 YEARS THE CLOSEST NUMBERS WE HAD TO THIS WAS 2007 THEN DIESEL PRICES WERE 450 A GAL. AND NO ONE COULD AFFORD TO GO AND WE STILL MANAGED 163,990 LBS IN AUG AND 284,986 IN SEPT. The DNR HAS ALL THE DATA BUT THEY DON’T SEEM CONCERNED ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE SHRIMP. MAYBE THEY ARE AFRAID OF WHAT THEY MIGHT FIND OUT. BACK IN THE LATE 70 AND EARLY 80’S WHEN THEY WERE TRYING TO PROMOTE AQUA-CULTURED SHRIMP WE HAD DOCUMENTATION SHOWING HOW IT WAS DETRIMENTAL TO THE WILD STOCK AND ALL THEY DID WAS SHUT US UP SO THEY COULD CONVINCE PEOPLE INTO INVESTING IN AQUA-CULTURED SHRIMP. I HAVE BEEN HERE FROM THE BEGINNING AND NOW IT LOOKS LIKE WE ARE FACING THE END. I THINK IT TOOK THIS LONG FOR THE DISEASES THAT CAME WITH THE AQUACULTURE TO SPREAD FAR AND WIDE ENOUGH TI KILL THE INDUSTRY.
tHESE NUMBERS DONT LIE AND WHEN THIS SEPTEMBER LANDING IS 43THOUSAND LBS. THAT IS 5% OF 2012 WE GOT A MAJOR PROBLEM some ONE OR SOMETHING IS RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING AN INDUSTRY AND IT AINT THE BOATS BECAUSE AINT ENOUGH OF US LEFT. ALL THE INVESTORS WHO INVESTED IN POND RAISED SHRIMP LOST THEIR MONEY BECAUSE IT WASN’T FEASIBLE IN OUR CLIMATE BUT IT WAS sANDIFER’S THING SO I BLAME HIM. it COULD HAVE BEEN THE OIL SPILL IF IT TOOK IT THIS LONG TO GET IN THE CHARLESTON BIGHT WHICH IS AN EDDY OFF THE GULF STREAM BUT NO-ONE IS OUT TRYING TO PROVE THAT AND THE GULF IS HAVING ONE OF ITS BEST YEARS IN A WHILE SO THEY GOT ALL THE RELIEF MONEY AND OW THEY ARE GETTING TOP DOLLAR FOR THEIR SHRIMP AND WE AIN’T GETTING NUTTIN
i COULD GO ON AND ON BUT IT WON’T DO NO GOOD BUT I FIGURED I WOULD POST MY 2 CENT WORTH
ONE OTHER THING GOOGLE SHRIMP FARMING AND DISEASES IN SHRIMP AND SEE FOR YOURSELF
I haven’t been doing to good with the shrimp when baiting,1/2 cooler at best of small and mediums in Wadmalaw Sound, but the creeks are still chock full of small bait shrimp,not tiny enough to go thru 1/2 mesh but smaller than you’d want to put in the freezer,maybe we need some rain to make em grow and push some out to the commercial shrimpers. I’m stumped like everyone else as I thought with the mild winter and plenty of rain for em in spring and early summer that we would have a bumper crop of big ones. I know years ago,some of the best shrimping would come right as the season went out,lets hope it will be like that this year.
You can’t catch fish on a dry line
Notice a lot of the bait shrimp I have been catching have black gill, furthermore how many of the shrimp caught in deep holing are roe shrimp? Just a thought as to where have the shrimp gone/
The overwintering shrimp turn into the roe shrimp for the following season. there is no way there is enough deep holing to affect the fall crop.This year we had tons of roe shrimp in May June and into July but nothing this fall. In 2011 we had a severe winter kill from cold water temps and o roe shrimp in the spring and summer and had 10 times more shrimp in the fall than we got this year. actually we had a pretty fair season. We have a disease problem out there right now. just like the porpoises that they are finding on the whole atlantic coast. The only thing we can hope for is Mother nature to fix it. There isn’t nothing any person can do about it. In aquaculture they treat the ponds with antibiotics but you can’t treat an whole eco-system so we have to let nature take its course and maybe by the wet spring this year it will help fix it next year. I have had to cancel orders with customers I have been supplying shrimp for 40 yrs because I can’t produce them. WE will struggle thru and hope the shrimp show back up next year. I just talked to a commercial buddy who caught 18 lbs yesterday where he should have caught hundreds. When you try to tell customers you can’t catch their order they don’t seem to understand but evryone of us commercial guys woud love to fill our orders but it aint possible. We are keeping enough to keep our retail going and that hasn’t been easy
When I was in Japan last year I was served roe shrimp for an appetizer. It was raw with all the roe stacked on top. It was awesome but then again just about anything goes well with beer.