For Florida:

Recreational Shrimping Regulations

Bag Limit: Individuals can take 5 gallons, heads on, per harvester per day. Possession limit of no more than 5 gallons, heads on, per vessel at any time regardless of the number of persons onboard.

I’ve gone fishing, set trotlines, jug fishing, clamming, spearfishing, lobstering, seining, turtling (for freshwater ones not Loggerheads like in this post), bow fishing, snagging, frog gigging, cast netting, and probably a few other things legal and otherwise over the years, all in order to put some sort of aquatic creature on the plate.

Two that I haven’t done is scalloping (and the wife and I talked about doing it over the summer, only didn’t make the time), and shrimping. The local waters are full of shrimp. The may not be U10’s, but they are shrimp, and basically free for the picking…if you put in the effort.

Only I don’t really know what effort to put forth. I’ve never done it before, and I don’t know anyone that has with enough success to brag about. I know that the local waters are not known for their massive shrimp population, but they ARE here, so why not go get some for myself?

I’ve run across various methods, and have spoken with several people that were trying to catch them, but none seemed to be true veterans of shrimping.

(On a related topic, one night I watched about 50 people fishing on the Jensen Beach Causeway, eastern catwalk, and most were using store-bought shrimp, but almost none were catching any fish. The two folks I saw consistently catching fish were using shrimp they were catching themselves right below their feet, using a dip net on them as the shrimp swam under them. It seems that the local fish preferred local shrimp..talk about local flavor….)

So I’m looking into shrimping via hand nets or scoops to use while wading. I’ve seen various setups, and I now have BlueTang sucked into my latest scheme, so I at least have someone that grew up locally that is going along for the ride. Might work on SB as well…he also is a local.

Thoughts? Ideas? Five gallons of shrimp doesn’t seem impossible, and while it may take 3 or 4 hours to gather that many, it has to beat sitting at the house watching American Idol, or some other brain-rotting, life-sucking show. A little exercise, some fresh salt air, and the possibility of the freshest shrimp cocktail possible?

I’m in!

Peace,
db