Gulf of Mexico shrimping season is in full swing. Texas shrimp is one of the most valuable shrimp from that body of water.
Workers from other states and Mexico are working the Gulf of Mexico because the shrimp is at its largest six. Texas sees to it that they are big.
According to Andrea Hance with the Texas Shrimp Association, “Texas waters close for a couple of months and that’s during May 15th through July 15th. The reason Texas does this, it allows our shrimp to grow to a larger, more marketable size.”
The boats stay out for 30, 45, sometimes 60 days.
“A lot of them are starting to trickle in since our season opened almost a month ago, and so, we’re seeing quite a bit of shrimp so it looks like we’re gonna have a fairly decent harvest,” Hance states. “The prices are fairly high right now so that obviously makes us happy.”
The news is good this year, but the shrimpers tell us their voyage is very difficult.
“OMG! The season out there is no joke. You work 24/7. There is no rest, you might get a 30 minute break throughout the 24/7 hour period... It’s an endless, endless day-- endless nights, no sleep. It’s rough. It’s tough. It’s work. It’s nothing like work out here on land. It’s a different experience,” shrimper Anthony Lee Andrade explains.
Now, they say that with all this shrimp to be caught, they all have to work together, and, of course, that means working in close proximity during a pandemic that’s actually spiking in this region but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
“You can’t think about the pandemic because there’s no time to think about no pandemic out there, you’re just constantly working-- 24/7,” Andrade states. “When I mean 24/7, I mean 24/7... The pandemic for us out there. We came back all healthy. None of us got sick. We’re still good, in good shape.”
He says that someone’s gotta catch all the shrimp. There’s a reason they need to get the work done.
“What we’re seeing is a trend in consumers actually choosing something to eat in the grocery store that is healthy,” Hance adds. “So, that’s what all of the analysts are telling us right now. So, our shrimp buyers are having a hard time keeping the supply of shrimp, and so they’re calling us begging for shrimp right now which is great.”
With prices high on shrimp, Hance believes the shrimpers will make some money this year, but she says that she does not want to see the prices go too high.
