Fishermen 



Sailing and fishing skill of captain and crew frequently 

 spell the difference between success and failure in shrimping operations. 

 The opinion of people familiar with the south Atlantic and Gulf shrimp 

 fisheries is that the rapid expansion of operations in recent years, 

 with the concommitant necessity for hiring many inexperienced crews, 

 was only accomplished at the cost of lov;ering the general level of 

 skill of the fishermen employed. W As a result, fishing standards in 

 the southern shrimp fishery today are not as high as in other branches 

 of fish or shellfish production. Tiiis generalization has to be modi- 

 fied to the extent that quality of crew differs widely from boat to 

 boat and that some able skippers have been attracted from other fish- 

 eries by the eai'ning opportunities in shrimping. 



VJhen shrimping was a comparatively small and localized 

 industry, labor was drawn from the immediate vicinity of the home port. 

 Fishing was often a family occupation where a son followed in his fa- 

 ther's footsteps as soon as he was physically able to stand the rigors 

 of the fisherman's life. Fishing skill and a love for the trade were 

 virtually inherited along with the fisherman's attachment to his local 

 environment. 



The expansion of the industry and the shift in its geographic 

 center has wrought considerable changes in this pattern. 



A portion of the industry adjusted itself to the new circum- 

 stances by moving to permanent residences in the proximity of the new 

 groxinds wlien it becarae apparent that the fishing grounds in the Gulf 

 would supplant those in the south Atlantic as primary source of supply. 

 Some of the fishermen, shrimp plant operators, and processors now re- 

 siding in ports on the Gulf coast of Florida and in Texas, originally 

 followed their trades in the Garolinas, Georgia, or northern Florida. 



Other fishermen still reside in Georgia and northern Florida, 

 even when they fish for most of the year in the Gulf. This makes it 

 necessary for thera to return to their homes between fishing trips and 

 reduces the utilization of the boat. The extension of the trips to 

 Campeche has added to the hardships. While trips foi-marly wero of 2^ 

 days' duration, they have become considerably longer. Since crews are 

 no longer allowed on land in Mexico they are at sea for longer periods, 

 working under primitive conditions and are entirely dependent on their 

 vessel's supplies. 



The geographic shift in a portion of the labor supply did 

 not solve the general labor shortage problem created by the mushrooming 



—^ Both First Research Corporation and the Bureau of Business and 

 Economic Research of the University of Miami commented similarly. 



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