here s M 

 than One 

 to Catch a 



By Erin S e i I i n g 



V 



JL ried shrimp, boiled shrimp, sauteed shrimp, coconut shrimp, shrimp 

 Creole, shrimp salad, shrimp burger — as Forrest Gump's friend Bubba 

 would say, "there's all kinds of shrimp." 



Vacationers often look forward to enjoying fresh, local shrimp when 

 visiting the coast of North Carolina. But for those lucky enough to live at 

 the coast, eating seafood is as easy as dropping a line, or a net, in the water. 



Kenny Sessions, a Topsail Island native, is one of the lucky locals who 

 relishes the bounty of North Carolina coastal waters year-round. 



"I love being on the water, fishing. It's just fun. It's what I like to do," 

 he says. 



A Good Fishing Tale 



Sessions has turned that love of fishing into a part-time occupation. 

 A general contractor by day, he spends his nights catching shrimp by 

 the pound in a homemade trap. His unique trap is the talk of Topsail and 

 has inspired an N.C. Fishery Resource Grant (FRG) to further study the 

 trap's applications as a bonafide method of commercial and recreational 

 shrimping. Sessions explains how it all began. . . 



"One night about nine years ago, I was sitting outside of my parents' 

 house when I noticed something moving along the seawall," he says. "I 

 threw a cast net out to see what the 'things' were — and pulled in a net full 

 of shrimp!" 



Night after night, Sessions watched the shrimp and decided that if they 

 were going to "walk" right by his family's house, he was going to find a 

 way to catch them. 



"I made something like a little minnow trap with small lead nets on 

 it, set it off the seawall, and started catching shrimp," he explains. And he 

 caught lots of them. 



"We'd put the trap out, have friends and neighbors over and cook the 

 shrimp right as we caught them," he says. "They were so fresh they were 

 trying to jump out of the pot as we were throwing them in." 



Sessions' fishing tale often is met with skepticism. It just sounds 

 too good to be true. But, he's used to that by now and eager to show his 

 invention to anyone who is interested. 



Continued 



Coastwatch I Winter 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 21 



