Shrimping in Mobile Bay with Meteorologist Grant Skinner

MOBILE, Ala. ( WKRG ) — Shrimping is a hobby for some and a job for others, especially here on the Gulf Coast.

That is why I wanted to head out to Mobile Bay with Yano Serra of Speck Tackle Lure to learn all there is to know about shrimping. Follow along on my journey!

We started at a boat dock off of Dog River. Winds were a bit breezy at times but not too strong.

“We’re going to get out here and get our water just right, our depth, because we just went through a really cold, cold front where it was in the teens,” Serra said.

Water temperature is very important.

While we had jackets and heaters to warm us up during the cold, the shrimp do not have that.

“They have to find the deep water where the warmth is,” Serra said. “And if it’s just one degree, that’s a big change.”

In addition to water temperature, the tides are also a big factor.

“A lot of times on a neap tide, your shrimp, they bury up; they won’t come out,” Serra said. “You need some sort of movement just like fish.”

With all these factors in mind, we were able to find a channel of Mobile Bay with just the right conditions. We got our water ready inside the boat to store the shrimp and then prepared to drop the net and start dragging.

After just one three-minute drag, we caught about 1,000 to 1,500 shrimp!

We had a pretty large net, so we were able to quickly get a lot once we lowered the net into the warmer waters. We did not just catch shrimp, though.

“Right now as cold as the water is, everything is in there: fish, crab, stingray,” Serra said. “So you can’t drag real long.”

The shrimping industry is changing, and Serra has seen the impacts already for shrimpers in the area.

Operational costs are increasing such as fuel costs, and more businesses are importing cheaper shrimp from overseas.

“There’s still quite a few people who shrimp right now, but you’ve got low price; you’ve got high fuel,” Serra said. “It’s just hard to overcome all of that.”

He has been mainly doing this as a hobby. He was already doing in-shore fishing and catching his own live bait, so he added shrimping.

“When I started doing it, I really enjoyed it,” Serra said. “I mean, me and this dog right here will come out, and we’ll stay out just a few hours. We’ll catch way more than I need. And then, I can sell it to the public, meet a lot of nice people.”

Despite industry changes, Serra and many others can be found shrimping in Mobile Bay and across the Gulf Coast. I had a wonderful experience, and it helped me to see and learn why shrimping and Gulf shrimp are so important to our area.

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