Eligibility issue hurts Colonels in SLC Tourney
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May 28, 2014
Hands at the wheel of the 45-foot vessel named Jaycee Ray, Ricky Picou watched as two glistening, writhing clumps of shrimp, assorted small fish and hanks of dark sea-grass dropped onto a forward-deck picking table.
The yield wasn’t huge – maybe 80 pounds – but Ricky said it would do for these first daylight hours of Louisiana’s 2014 inshore shrimp season. What shrimp were caught numbered 50 or 60 to the pound, and could net as much as $2 per pound, at least for now.
“That’s some pretty shrimp right there,” Ricky said, as the vessel slowly moved through waters near the Robinson Canal in Terrebonne Parish, then offering a pearl of optimism. “It’ll be better tonight, the brown shrimp move more at night.”
There in Lake Robinson, in nearby Lake Boudreaux and the waters of lakes Pelto and Barre, the story was the same Monday morning. Not the biggest numbers, not the biggest sizes, and a wobbly price structure as well, but nobody is panicking just yet.
“We’ll probably know farther into the week what it is looking like,” said Julie Falgout, seafood industry liaison for Louisiana SeaGrant at LSU, which monitors the state’s commercial fisheries.
On local waterways the proliferation of boats often seen during season openings was not evident. Larger boats, especially the double-rigged trawlers, had taken their places had taken their places in waters farther out. In Lake Pelto groups of three and four shrimp boats were tied together at mid-day, their captains opting to save fuel and catch what they could after dark.
“This is not looking like one of our better seasons for sure,” said Kimberly Chauvin of the David Chauvin Seafood Company in Dulac. “It doesn’t look good for now but it has been a really long winter and the people are looking to this season to pay bills.”
Louisiana waters that opened Monday stretched from the Mississippi River to Freshwater Bayou. Waters to the east and west of those points is expected to open Monday, which some shrimpers said could make for more promising catches.
Wednesday’s new moon was expected to help as it progressed. Some shrimpers were critical of an opening on the back of the lunar cycle. But state officials said they wanted to open waters as early as possible, since a very cold and long winter had likely stunted shrimp development. Some shrimpers determined Monday that shrimp would still need time to grow.
“Right now it’s just a wait-and-see game,” said Al Marmande of Al’s Shrimp Co. in Dularge. “We’ll know when we see the larger sized boats coming in. I know that right now all of us can’t supply all the shrimp that is needed for this area.”
Marmande and others in the shrimp business noted that this season comes on the back of a prior year seen as disastrous. Prices to fishermen were high, due to a heavy demand for wild-caught U.S. shrimp due to a blight in Asian aquaculture operations. The bubble is not expected to last forever.
But catches were down on a boat-to-boat basis, according to dock owners and processors, who are paying more per pound but getting less of a volume catch. And volume, dock owners say, is where the money is made for their end of the industry.
“Things just haven’t been the same since the BP oil spill,” said Marmande, echoing an opinion shared by others in the industry.
With the potential for a smaller crop, fishermen have concerns about other variables. One of those, equipment breakdowns, was a reality for Walter Coupel of White Castle, whose skimmer boat Capt. Heavy didn’t get to make a full round before problems with the mechanism that lifts the nets set in.
No major problems were reported Monday morning on waterways busy not just with out-bound shrimp boats but pleasure craft taking advantage of warm, clear weather on the Memorial Day holiday.
And despite concerns over the low yield, many said time might just tell a better story in the weeks to come.
“You get a little worried,” Kimberly Chauvin said. “Everyone is worried. But you just have to have faith.”
Desmond Trosclair separates shrimp from bycatch on the front deck of the fishing vessel Jaycee Ray Monday morning in Lake Robinson. The boat’s first catch netted about 80 pounds of brown shrimp on the first day of Louisiana’s 2014 season.
