Shrimp: The Endless Quest for Pink Gold

6. The Shrimp Run

With the sea rusting away the rigging and eating up the bottom of the boat, and the cost of fuel never going down, shrimping is a rough way to make a living. A shrimp fisherman must fight the weather, run from hurricanes, and watch for sharks tearing holes in his nets.

It’s especially rough making a living shrimping in the winter. In the northern Gulf of Mexico, cold front after cold front sweeps down from Canada, the plankton die, and the water is so clear and lifeless that hardly a worm crawls. The sea becomes so icy cold that shrimp vanish into the mud. Even the big trawlers, fishing in a hundred feet of water where it’s a little warmer, can’t catch enough shrimp to pay expenses. Fishermen call it scrapping.

Shrimpers are ...