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Sizes of shrimp available during this year’s spring season – now in its second week – are encouraging according to local processors and fishermen.
But the suggestion that an earlier season start could have made for better outcomes is gaining traction. While the sizes are good the numbers of shrimp aren’t there, causing some fishers concern that large portions of the crop already have fled to the open Gulf of Mexico.
“The larger boats were able to do a little better,” said Kimberly Chauvin of the David Chauvin Seafood Company in Dulac said. Bigger boats if properly permitted can fish beyond Louisiana’s three-mile inshore limit.
A check of prices paid to boats in the bayou region this week showed an average of around $2.10 for 15-20 count shrimp and $1.75 for 21-25 shrimp to the pound sizes.
“It should be better than that, we are still having low prices,” said Al Marmande of Al’s Seafood in Dularge.
Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries commissioners were willing to consider an early opening than May 8 at one point, but there was no pressure on them to do so from fishermen. So plans for an April opening were bypassed.
While warmer temperatures are seen as an easier culprit to finger, Marmande said other changes, especially coastal erosion, could have a lot to do with the problem as well.
