Texas Gulf Shrimping

We spent several hours today at the Brownsville, TX, based Texas Gulf Trawling company.

A big part of the message concerned the business side of shrimping. U.S. shrimpers must compete with foreign growers who raise shrimp in shallow ponds. To allow shrimp to grow to a large size as the shrimp become crowded antibiotics are used. The residue of the multiple antibiotics used is the problem in imported pond reared shrimp. U.S. growers also pond rear shrimp, but antibiotics are not used. Importation of shrimp reared with the use of antibiotics is not allowed but inspection is rare and most get into the country. Sellers should provide information regarding country of origin, but most are unaware when making purchases. Major sea food restaurant chains (Red Lobster, Bubba Gump) use less expensive imported shrimp according to the Gulf Trawling host. The summary message - buy "live caught" to avoid unwanted antibiotics.

The shrimping industry is down drastically in the past 10 years, but doing better at present because of low prices for diesel. Fuel to move these slow moving boats to the areas in which shrimp are harvested is the largest expense.

Three to five men go out on a boat for weeks at a time. All are private contractors. The boat captains work for the company and the captain hires and pays the crew. The larger crew is put on when the expected harvest is greater for a given trip. From one to three of the men work as "headers". This company pops the heads off before freezing the shrimp. The amount of manual labor in harvesting tons of shrimp is mind boggling and the workers may go for days with only a couple hours of sleep a day.

A couple of things I learned:

Shrimp is frozen and this is a good thing. Fresh shrimp you may purchase at the supermarket has been thawed. The problem with thawed shrimp is dehydration. Shrimp are frozen in water to prevent dehydration and can be refrozen without a problem.

Shrimp live in the mud and shrimping is done at night when the shrimp come closer to the surface of the mud. A net is pulled along the bottom with a chain (called a tickler) that vibrates and brings the shrimp out of their holes.

Shrimping nets are constructed to exclude turtles and fish.

You cannot spot shrimp using sonar or some other electronic device. Shrimpers use a smaller net (see photo) to sample. This test net is used when searching for shrimp and while harvesting so the captain knows when to use the larger nets. The sample net is put down for 1/2 hour and the larger nets for up to four hours.

It is relatively easy to devein and peel a shrimp. A plastic tool (shown below) is pushed down the back and then used to separate the meat from the rest of the animal. Works great and we bought several.

Devein tool

Sampling net