Shrimp Trawling

Trawl boats are among the most inspiring vessels to ever embark upon the sea. Whether fishing for fin-fish, scallops, crabs or, the most likely target, shrimp, the mechanical beauty of these harvesters of the sea has inspired artists, poets and generations of fishermen who have pitted their will against the elements to bring home the bounty of the sea.

As fishing techniques go, trawling is a fairly young endeavor. North Carolina fishermen began trawling in 1912 after boats from New England began shrimping in the southern part of the state. Prior to that, shrimp had been considered a trash species. Now it's one of America's favorite seafoods and North Carolina's No. 3 seafood species, accounting for $10.3 million.

Encyclopedia Britannica classifies shrimp as "…any of approximately 2,000 species of the suborder Natantia (order Decapoda of the class Crustacea)…Shrimps are characterized by a semitransparent body flattened from side to side and a flexible abdomen terminate in a fanlike tail." To fishermen the squiggly little crustaceans are simply brown, pink or white shrimp. To seafood lovers they're boiled, grilled or fried.

By 1923 a full-scale fishery had begun for shrimp utilizing trawls. At the time trawl nets were referred to as otter trawls for the "otter boards" used to keep trawl nets open under water. Otter boards, now more commonly known as trawl doors, are planks of wood attached at the right and left sides of a trawl net.

Once submerged, the boards act as rudders, forcing the right and left sides of the net apart and keeping the net open and ready for business.

As shrimp gained popularity in the early half of the twentieth century, , more and more fishermen began to redirect their efforts toward shrimp. By the mid-1950s North Carolina's shrimping fleet routinely caught upwards of 7-million pounds each year. By the 1960s it became apparent that shrimp stocks are virtually immune to overfishing. They are not, however, as resistant to natural disasters.

"You're not going to overfish the shrimp," explained lifetime fishermen and seafood dealer Murray Fulcher. "It's a yearly crop. Environmental factors have more to do with the shrimp crops than fishing. I believe that water temperature and the water quality are the primary factors. If you have a good combination you're going to have a good year. For example, this year the salinity is high enough that we could have a good shrimp season. Of course, I haven't been watching the water temperature this year. But if the factors are in place we'll have a lot of shrimp."

Regulations
Once it was determined that shrimp stocks were nearly immune to fishing effort, other factors came to affect how trawling was conducted. The nature of the fishery had always provided shrimpers with a healthy side-income in incidental catches of finfish, crabs and other valuable species. But as fisheries regulators were given the task of insuring all fishery stocks are sustainable indefinitely by the Magnuson Fishery Conservation Act (1976), the nature of shrimp trawling was changed forever.

In attempts to relieve fishing pressure on marine species believed to be under stress state and federal regulators began restricting the species and numbers of fish that shrimps trawlers could legally sell as incidental catch.

From there regulators passed regulations requiring shrimp trawls to utilize fish and turtle excluder devices in an effort to actually reduce the number of fish shrimp trawls were forced to throw over board and to protect sea turtles listed as endangered species. At first both types of devices were clunky, costing shrimpers thousand upon thousands of dollars in lost catch and fishing time.

But as time passed fishermen and regulatory gear experts worked together to make these environmentally friendly devices more manageable. And, given the current state of fisheries regulations, many fishermen are glad for the technological advancement.

"You'll find some people disagree with me, but I'm at a point where I'm glad for the fish excluder devices the way they are now," says Wilmington, NC shrimper Robert Southerland. "If [regulators] are not going to let us sell the incidental fish I'd rather not ever have them on deck. Honestly, I feel like with the way the fishery is now, shrimping is cleaner than it's ever been."

Advancements
Advancements in engine efficiencies, hydraulics and electronics have also changed the way trawling is conducted in North Carolina.

More powerful engines allow fishermen to use larger boats and pull more gear amounting to better safety for crews, a more versatile fishery - shrimp trawlers can fish inland waters as well as the open ocean - and fewer overall vessels harvesting a greater number of shrimp.

Data collected by North Carolina and federal fishery regulators were spotty at best before the trip ticket programs were initiated in 1994 but fishermen who worked the waters say the number of vessels targeting shrimp in the 1960s was extraordinary.

"I remember the first time I went shrimping out in the Pamlico Sound in the 1960s, my God, you've never seen so many boats in all your life," says North Carolina Fisheries Association Chairman and lifetime fisherman Billy Carl Tillett. "People were on little ole ding-bat boats (smaller vessels, generally used as pleasure craft) up in the rivers and out in the sounds. You would have thought everybody was shrimping."
Murray Fulcher says the decline in the number of boats trawling for shrimp has likely occured due to the availability of modern high powered engines. According to Fulcher, today's engines allow each boat to pull more net allowing a smaller fleat to meet consumer demand.

"In the late '60s V12 engines could deliver 350 to 400-horsepower," Fulcher says. "Now V12s can give you around 800-horsepower. Back then trawlers were pulling two 75-foot nets. With 800-horsepower you can pull four or more 75 foot nets."

The Trawler
Despite a smaller and environmentally cleaner trawling fleet, trawlers are an easy target for groups who do not understand the history of shrimp trawling and for groups wishing to distort the facts in order to divert attention from their own activities.

In recent months North Carolina has faced two pieces of legislation to ban shrimp trawling and a proposition by the South Atlantic Marine Fisheries Commission to ban night trawling and require federal permitting of shrimp fishermen.

Through diligent efforts by fishermen and a small handful of organizations determined to protect their rights, none of these efforts has found enough support to impact the fishery.

Shrimp trawling has changed a great deal over the years. And, as we've seen before, the face of that fishery could change over night. But if there's anything the fishermen who run these boats know it's how to weather a storm. Regardless of whether that storm comes from Washington, D.C. or the Atlantic Ocean, shrimp trawlers will do everything in their power to keep their vessels and their fishery afloat.

Englehard, NC Trawler in the Pamlico Sound, 1949—The practice of trawling for shrimp has a history that reaches back nearly to the begining of the twentieth century. Photos provided by the NC Maritime Museum of Beaufort - Photos by Hemmer.

Trawlers as far as the eye can see in Wilmington, NC. Although the Wilmington waterfront has a distinctly different character today the area has a history as a busy trawler port (1948, Hemmer).

Trawlers in the Pamlico Sound (1948, Hemmer).

Captain Elmer Gilgo uses the radio phone aboard the Oriental, a World War II German military vessel (rumored to have been Hitler's personal yacht) retrofitted as a buy boat and trawler. (1948, Hemmer)

A virtual fleet of trawl boats docked in Oriental, NC (1948, Hemmer).

Shrimp being unloaded from a trawler to a buy-boat on the fishing grounds off Hatteras (1948, Hemmer).