I worked bait shrimp for more then a year between NPR and Tarpon Springs FL, amazing work most of the time, grueling all of the time.
When the shrimp were thick it was easily 7 days a week and you didn't get but a days rest till your more then salty capt got tired. We'd usually leave dock around 5pm depending on how far we were going, drop the trawls as the sun was dipping into the gulf and then nonstop work till it was time to get off the boat. How ever much time you took to drive to you spot, you'd allow that much time to get back to the dock around 6am. During the drive time back you had to pick/clean your dead shrimp.
I love to fish, I never thought that we were wasteful, as someone stated above, you are putting out a chum line and god only knows what's following the boat. Nothing cooler then taking a pinfish and bouncing it off your board to stun it, so you can see a several hundred lb dolphin be bumped out of the way by an even bigger dolphin all of which is happening feet away from you. The dolphin would come up and smack their tales or blow to let you know they were there, amazing animals.
As for fishing, you really don't have the time if you're working. Bait shrimping only allows 15-30 mins between drags, the faster you sorted through your catch and picked the shrimp. With that being said, I caught my 1st cobia and snook, the snook was back at the dock, cobia was off the boat while out. I'd take small flounder and let them skip behind the boat just in the shadow line from our lights, I never once outta of maybe a dz times, reeled in what ever drilled those flounder, an explosion of water would occur and if you had the time you'd get maybe 5 or so minutes to attempt bringing it in before it was time to bring up the trawls.
Once you brought up your nets, you'd pull you tail bag above your work station release the catch, retie the tail bag, and drop the trawls. If you had a bunch of grass you'd take a steel bar or broom handle, and pivet or work in a figure eight through the box. The box is basically a tank that's roughly 3x3x2 ft. You'd work that stick till the grass was cleared, making each pass slightly deeper then last. Then you'd skim it with a dip net to get out the pinfish that were at the top, it was a grueling step by step procedure, each time you skimmed the box you'd empty the net on a pc if ply that was closed on 3 sides with the fourth side opened to the side of the boat, with another pice of 1/2 ply you'd quickly sort and push the big stuff off the board back into the drink. Once everything for the most part was cleaned out you'd be left with pure shrimp in the bottom of your box, you dip them out onto your board and then pick them. Behind your main work tank, you'd have several clean tanks. This is what they'd refer to as pick'n pennies. You'd dump almost pure shrimp on your board and then grab them up and pitch them into the tanks behind your work tank. You didn't actually grab the shrimp though, you grab three or more at a time in each hand up by running your fingers right about them picking them up by their antennae. Once you got good at it was pretty cool to see a constant arch of shrimp flying through the air.
So if your were working 15-20 minute drags and it took your 10 minutes or more to work your tank you didn't get much rest in between.
The key was to not handle the shrimp too much, for dead shrimp were worthless. Too many dead shrimp in your tanks supposedly would kill the live ones, so you'd have to constantly clean them with out hurting them. They'd die for many different reasons, too much rain all at once, stress, beat up in the process of getting caught and picked but didn't die till they were in the clean tanks.
Absolutely amazing work, pulling out daily going through the channel to the gulf, taking a 1-2 hr commute on the water can't be beat. The crazy stuff you'd see that most will never see outside the Discovery Channel. When people found out you shrimped they'd beg for free shrimp, it was always funny to hear back from them the next day after you gave them 10 lb of uncleaned shrimp.
The pay wasn't good, the owner of the boat took 50%, the capt took 30-40% leaving the help with 10-20%, these were usually 2 man boats. We'd catch on average 10-12k shrimp a night. But what your caught and what you sold was two different things. Some days you'd damn near work for free, some days you'd pull $75-100 a night. When the going was tough there were plenty of days I'd take a dz studs/cobbs down to the power plant after we unloaded and fish the discharge side right at the sun was coming back up for some big gator trout, if I got down to 1/2 dz shrimp I leave and save them for supper when I woke up, most of the time I'd pull a couple trout in 20-30 min, get home and clean them and have fried fish and shrimp when I woke up. It was quite a simplistic lifestyle in them days, things that only made you stronger. If I were still young, given the opportunity I'd do it all again. The stories and memories of those 18 or so months are stuff I can't wait to share with my kids. The crazy chit their dad did when he was young will hopefully inspire them to take a chance here and there.
Sorry for the wall of txt...
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