When Sessions developed his traps nearly a decade ago, he showed 

 his friends and neighbors how to make their own. Soon, houses all along 

 the waterway had their own homemade shrimp trap. 



But, lots on Topsail Island are only about 100 feet wide, and 

 sometimes three or four houses in a row would each set out a trap. 

 "[That] was just too many, too close," says Sessions. The arguments 

 escalated to the point where people were pulling up or destroying their 

 neighbor's traps and DMF was called in to regulate the situation. 



"We had heard of the traps, but didn't realize how widespread their 

 use had become," says David Taylor of DMF, referring to the recreational 

 gear. 



Limited experience with this type of 

 shrimping forced DMF to halt use of the traps 

 — both commercial and recreational — until 

 further studies could be done to assess the impact 

 of the gear. 



Researchers first became interested in testing 

 Sessions' traps after he introduced his design at 

 a Shrimp Fishery Management Plan advisory 

 committee meeting. 



"I want it to be available as an alternative 

 to trawling. I don't want to shut down any 

 fisheries or end traditional trawling. But I 

 think if it's out there and more people can 

 use it, people can decide what's best for 

 them." — Kenny Sessions 



"When Kenny presented the details, I knew 

 right away that this study would be a perfect 

 candidate for the FRG program," says Scott Baker, 

 a fisheries specialist with North Carolina Sea Grant. 



'That's the beauty of the FRG program," says 

 Baker. "It allows fishermen to have an active part in 

 the gear development and evaluation process." 



Sessions' FRG project along the southern 

 coast is one of three shrimp trap studies being 

 conducted. DMF is testing traps along the central 

 coast, and another researcher obtained a scientific and educational 

 collecting permit from DMF to test the traps further north. 



Although Sessions continues to set his traps the way he has done for 

 nearly a decade, the FRG project adds more scientific components. While 

 Sessions sets out the traps, Katharine Jarrell, a UNCW field biologist, 

 prepares flow meters to set alongside them. 



"These meters measure the velocity of the water. We've noticed that 

 if the flow is strong, the shrimp tend to be running strong," says Jarrell. 

 "We're also testing temperature and salinity, which, with a lot of data sets, 

 might show us more trends." 



This research component is important, Thorpe explains. 



"This project will not only study the catch efficiency of Kenny's 



design, but also will add to our understanding of shrimp behavior. 

 Ultimately, it will also help us to identify optimal conditions for 

 intercepting the shrimp using traps," says Thorpe. 



Sessions' project also is helping DMF answer questions about user 

 conflicts. By setting recreational traps 50 to 100 feet apart, "we will be 

 able to identify a distance at which traps begin to affect the catch rate of 

 an adjacent trap," explains Thorpe. 



Using the results from the various studies, DMF hopes to have 

 recreational regulations in place for the 2006 shrimp season. 



Sessions believes having two or three neighboring houses share a 



Sessions and Katharine Jarrell measure shrimp to get the "count, " or how many shrimp it 

 takes to make a pound. 



communal trap could eliminate user conflicts. This would space out the 

 traps along the waterway, allowing each trap to catch shrimp that could 

 then be divided among the neighbors. On Topsail, "everyone knows their 

 neighbors anyway," says Sessions. 



Topsail residents are not the only ones interested in the shrimp trap. 

 After seeing Sessions' project, Thorpe says she is "sold" on the idea. And 

 many others are as well. 



"There seems to be a lot of excitement about them," says Thorpe. 

 Even commercial trawlers have approached her regarding Sessions' 

 commercial design. Commercial and recreational traps are identical 

 except for their size. Commercial traps use 60-foot lead nets, while the 

 recreational traps use 8-foot nets. 



Coastwatch I Winter 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 



