Travel and Tourism photograph 



In this 1948 photograph, single-rig trawlers head toward Southport 



tages for the fishery. Demand for 

 shrimp rose as it was one of the few 

 meat products not on the ration lists. 

 The technology for quick freezing was 

 established and shrimpers began to 

 "night" shrimp. 



Prices shrimpers were paid for their 

 shrimp nearly tripled between 1940 

 and 1945, Maiolo and Bort report, and 

 did triple between 1945 and 1950. 

 Even then, fishermen were getting 

 paid only 24 cents a pound and prices 

 would fall again before beginning the 

 steady increase of the 1960s and 1970s. 



"The year of (Hurricane) lone, right 

 after (Hurricane) Hazel washed my 

 shrimp house away," Luther Lewis 

 says, "I was getting fifteen cents a 

 pound with the heads on and eighteen 

 cents with the heads off. We headed 

 'em right on the bank. Sometimes we'd 

 get fifteen hundred to eighteen hun- 

 dred pounds for the night. That was 

 several boats, then. That was mighty 

 cheap when you were paid only eigh- 

 teen cents a pound with the heads off." 



North Carolina's shrimp production 

 reached a record high in 1953 with 

 landings totaling more than 14 million 

 pounds. That year, North Carolina's 

 contribution to the South Atlantic 

 regional catch (excluding the Gulf) 

 was 36.48 percent, the highest ever, ac- 

 cording to Maiolo and Bort's findings. 

 Biologists are unsure exactly why 

 shrimp were so plentiful that year. 



During the 1950s a trend toward 

 larger boats began and it continues to- 

 day. Many trawlers were equipped 

 with diesel engines, onboard refrigera- 

 tion facilities, better net-hoisting gear 

 and improved nets. Trawlers were 

 capable of going farther offshore and 

 making longer trips. 



In 1955, Maiolo and Bort report, 

 2,000 North Carolina residents were 

 employed in the shrimp industry. 

 Some 1,200 vessels of all sizes and 

 types were being fished. Between 1945 

 and 1950, the number of otter trawls 

 doubled from 500 to more than a thou- 

 sand. Since 1950, the number of otter 

 trawls has remained between 800 and 

 1,000. 



While the state's shrimp industry 

 developed, so did the state's manage- 

 ment system. The state Board of Con- 

 servation and Development made 

 early shrimp regulations. Before the 

 shrimping "heydays" of the late forties 

 and early fifties, very little chal- 

 lenge was mounted to their reg- 

 ulatory practices. But after the 

 shrimping boom, demands were 

 heavier and controversy rampant. In 

 the late 1940s, a controversy erupted 

 between fin-fishermen and shrimpers. 

 Fin-fishermen maintained that 

 shrimping was destroying valuable 

 bottom area and killing pre- 

 marketable finfish. They wanted 

 shrimping curtailed, Maiolo says. In 

 1950 the Board, as a compromise 

 move, closed inside waters to shrimp- 

 ing January 1 to July 1. But the con- 

 troversy's flames ignited again when, 

 in 1951, the Board agreed to allow 

 "night" shrimping. 



While fishermen and management 

 officials were battling over regulations 

 in public hearings, some Carteret 

 County fishermen were establishing 

 some informal, but rigid rules for 

 another kind of shrimping — channel- 

 netting. Carteret County fishermen 

 developed this method of shrimping in 

 the late 1930s. It was thought that 

 channel-netting was unique to North 



Carolina, but recent research has un- 

 covered evidence that some Texans 

 also channel-netted. It appears the 

 developments were independent. 



Channel-netting is basically 

 stationary trawling. A net, very 

 similar to a trawl net, is set in a chan- 

 nel with a strong tidal current. The 

 ebb tide moves the shrimp into the net. 

 Only a limited number of areas are 

 prime spots for channel netting. Con- 

 sequently, informal but firm rules have 

 been established by the netters to 

 govern the areas and use of the nets. 



In their best hauls, channel nets 

 have harvested over a thousand 

 pounds of shrimp on one ebb tide. But 

 normally a channel-netter expects 

 much less, 50 to several hundred 

 pounds. Channel netting contributes 

 very little to the overall state shrimp 

 landings, but it continues to survive as 

 a tradition and as a low cost, energy- 

 efficient form of shrimping. 



The last major development in the 

 shrimp industry occurred, Maiolo and 

 Bort report, in 1955 with the develop- 

 ment of the double rig. It allowed 

 trawlers to net even larger quantities 

 of shrimp. Since then, other improve- 

 ments in gear have continued — nylon 

 nets, automatic pilot and loran naviga- 

 tion systems. 



When Luther Lewis was a child, the 

 idea of a winged trawler fishing the 

 sounds and offshore waters for shrimp 

 would have received scoffs and jeers. 

 But those trawlers are a reality, 

 netting thousands of pounds of shrimp 

 just 60 years after Luther Lewis 

 watched gulls pick shrimp out of Core 

 Sound. 



—Kathy Hart 



