Warmer water than usual for this time of year and lots of small brown shrimp moving into coastal estuaries have prompted Alabama and Mississippi marine resources officials to open shrimping season Wednesday morning.
That’s about two weeks earlier than has traditionally been the case, but shrimp experts in both states said test trawls last week showed that the average size of brown shrimp was at or above the 68-shrimp-per-pound count needed to legally open the season.
Traci Floyd, director of Mississippi’s Shrimp and Crab Bureau, and Alabama’s shrimp specialist Craig Newton also agreed that post-larval brown shrimp, averaging about a half-inch long, have moved into coastal nursery areas in several waves.
That could bode well for shrimpers who may see an extended season of good catches rather than having to rely on catching one peak migration as legal-size shrimp head back into the Gulf. Brown shrimp account for about 75 percent of the total shrimp catch — and revenue — in both states.
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