Dawgluver
Chef Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 25,033
And then we eat them. Oh, the horror!
from now on, i propose we call addie "bubba" (as in bubba from "forrest gump").
When shrimp are caught in the wild, they are beheaded and laid on a bed of crushed ice. They are then covered in more ice. They are separted on the deck by size. A lot of the really big ones are left with the heads on. These are for restaurants. The shrimp are placed in bins. As the bins get filled up, more boards are placed in the slots at the front. On a good boat, each bin holds just one size. They get more money for their efforts. The really small ones, the heads are left on. Those are for canning. A bad practice. Less money for them. It all depends on the captain. If the captain owns his own boat, he will make the crew behead the tiny ones. If the captain is on a boat owned by a company, they don't care.
So there is your lessone on what happens to wild shrimp when they are taken aboard a shrimper boat.
This is true of boats that are going to sea for several weeks, but not the case with "day boats"! Nothing beats fresh, wild caught, heads on shrimp!
That's true. And those are going straight to a restaurant. So what do you do with the rest of your catch? But places that will buy your shrimp as soon as you dock are far and few between. You have to have an agreement in place for that purchase to take place. You have to tie up early in the day and leave the dock in the wee hours of the morning. So there is not that much fresh shrimp on the market. The purchaser is the middle man. He doesn't want to be paying his workers overtime. And he usually has a contract with a local restaurant for the big ones. Most dayboaters are father/son or two brothers who think they are going to make a quick killing on the shrimp market. They waste more fuel going out and coming back in than they get paid for their catch. They also have to pay for their ice. If you don't find the "sweet spot" in your first hour out, you have wasted a trip.
Another reason you have dayboaters is because the owner/captain of the boat doesn't have enough experience to go out into deeper waters. Or the license issued by the CG. If you have to call the CG due to your own stupidity, you receive a hefty fine. So it is safer and more prudent to stay in close to shore where another shrimp boat can tow you in on their way back to dock. Those big shrimp got that way because they love the cold deep water. And dayboaters don't go out that far.
Have you ever watched "Swamp People"? I don't think Joe would waste his time shrimping if he wasn't going to make money. There are fish markets that depend on day boaters to get heads on shrimp for public sale, so I doubt all of the catch goes to restaurants.
All shrimp are frozen right on the boat. They are placed in the hold on a large bed of ice, then covered over with more ice that is a few inches thick.