The delicacy they used to call 'pests' 



A large sign on a roadway in Car- 

 teret County reads: SHRIMP 

 $3.25/LB. Many a shrimp lover turns 

 out his pockets for a handful or so 

 of those spiny crustaceans. But not 

 long ago, 60 years or so, a fisherman 

 could hardly give shrimp away in 

 coastal North Carolina. Shrimp were 

 considered "pests" that littered fisher- 

 men's nets. 



Luther Lewis, a 70-odd-year-old 

 Carteret County fisherman, remem- 

 bers when nobody wanted shrimp at 

 all. "There was nobody catching 'em 

 then. Nobody wanted 'em," he says. 

 "You could take the rigs they have 

 now and load a boat in a few minutes. 



"I went long-hauling when I was a 



Photo by Cassie Griffin 



Luther Lewis 



kid," Lewis says in a low, raspy voice. 

 "We'd see a big school of bluefish out 

 in the sound, all right thick. But one 

 day I had something on the boat to 

 throw in, to the gulls. And the gulls 

 went in after it and came up hauling 

 these big shrimp. It wasn't a thing in 

 the world but those big shrimp going 

 through the sound." 



The findings of two Sea Grant 

 researchers, East Carolina University 

 sociologists John Maiolo and John 

 Bort are proving Lewis' recollections 

 right. With historian William Still, 

 Maiolo and Bort have compiled a 

 history of the North Carolina shrimp 

 fishery. The study is designed to give 

 state management officials an under- 



standing of a fishery colored by tradi- 

 tion. 



The shrimp fishery got a slow start 

 in North Carolina. Inadequate 

 refrigeration facilities and poor 

 transportation methods were 

 devastating obstacles for a fishery 

 depending on such a perishable 

 product as shrimp. And, fishermen had 

 obstacles of their own. Boats were 

 small and gear was simple — gill, cast, 

 dip, fyke and pound nets were used. 



The shrimp fishery had its begin- 

 nings in North Carolina's southeast- 

 ern counties — Brunswick and New 

 Hanover. Maiolo and Bort learned 

 from R. E. Earll's 1887 account of the 

 North Carolina fisheries that 

 Wilmington was the "most northern 

 city on our Atlantic coast where the 

 shrimp fishery assumes the importance 

 of an actual industry." Earll also 

 reported that shrimp were plentiful 

 north of Wilmington in the Pamlico 

 Sound, but there was no local interest 

 in the crustaceans or any interest in ex- 

 porting them out of the area. 



But two developments in the shrimp 

 fishery prior to World War I gave the 

 North Carolina fishery a needed boost, 

 Maiolo and Bort found. Several 

 shrimp canneries were established 

 about 1915 in Brunswick County. This 

 created the first need for large quan- 

 tities of fresh shrimp in this state. 



But perhaps more important to the 

 shrimp fishery nationally was the 

 development of the otter trawl. An ot- 

 ter trawl is a cone-shaped net held 

 open by two boards called otter doors. 

 The otter trawl allowed fishermen to 

 fish deeper water and offshore areas for 

 the first time. It netted a greater catch 

 and was more efficient to use. With the 

 development of the otter trawl came a 

 change in boat design. The first 

 "trawlers" were much like the boat 

 Lewis shrimped from in the waters of 

 Core Sound. 



"I started shrimping in a small skiff 

 with a little gasoline motor," Lewis 

 says. "It was a thirty-footer and I drug 

 a thirty-two-foot trawl net with two 

 doors. I had my first big trawler built 

 in the mid-thirties. I had it made by a 

 man here in Davis, Stanton Davis I 

 believe. It was a single rig." 



By the thirties, two types of trawlers 

 were used to shrimp in North Carolina. 

 The Florida trawler, developed in the 

 state that bears its name, carries the 



engine room toward the front of the 

 boat and the hold in the stern. It 

 stands high out of the water, with the 

 bow two or more feet higher than the 

 stern. The "Core Sounder," built in 

 the Core Sound area of North 

 Carolina, has a flared bow and round- 

 ed stern. It works particularly well for 

 trawling inside waters. 



The otter trawl revolutionized 

 shrimp fishing and after World War I, 

 the fishery prospered, both nationally 

 and in North Carolina. Refrigeration 

 and North Carolina's easy access to 

 the Fulton Fish Market in New York 

 benefited this state's fishery, Maiolo 

 says. Brunswick County, and in par- 

 ticular the Southport area, led the 

 state in shrimp landings most of the 

 1920s and 1930s. 



Southport's population mush- 

 roomed during shrimp season as 

 migrant fishermen arrived to net their 

 share of the crop. Most of the shrimp- 

 ing in those days was carried out dur- 

 ing the day. Boats would pull out of 

 their docks early in the morning and 

 return during the afternoon. Then the 

 fun came, according to Southport's 

 State Port Pilot. Several hundred 

 "pickers" headed the shrimp, some- 

 times long into the night, singing as 

 they worked. You could hear "a real 

 melody floating up from the picking 

 houses," the Pilot reported. The 

 pickers were paid a nickel a bucket for 

 their efforts. 



But Brunswick County's near 

 monopoly of the shrimp industry ended 

 during the 1930s as Carteret County 

 fishermen took to shrimping the 

 Bogue, Core and Pamlico Sounds. It 

 was a poor time though for fishermen 

 to cash in on shrimp, Maiolo and Bort 

 report. During the depression years of 

 the 1930s shrimp were bringing only 

 about three cents a pound. To help 

 fishermen help themselves during 

 these bleak years, the federal govern- 

 ment loaned fishermen, who wanted to 

 join, the money to gear up a 

 cooperative that would pay higher 

 prices for their catches. But competi- 

 tion from independent dealers and the 

 inability to establish an in-state 

 market led to a quick demise for the 

 cooperative. 



During the years of World War II, 

 manpower shortages presented 

 problems for the shrimping industry, 

 but the war had several positive advan- 



