Fall Harvest
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Just like farmers Texas bay shrimpers usually have their best harvest in the fall of the year. The spring season is mostly native brown shrimp and some mature white shrimp will come into the bays and estuaries at this time and will spawn in the brackish waters in the back bays. There is also a big white shrimp spawn in the gulf about the end of June into mid July and a lot of the larvae will be swept into the inland bays and mature during the summer and by mid August are getting big enough to harvest. The season for legally taking white shrimp starts August fifteenth and runs until December. It used to go until the fifteenth of December but I believe it closes earlier now I'm out of the loop on current regulations. The shrimp must be at least fifty per pound and the way the market is now unless you have a bait concession that size isn't worth the effort to catch. Last week I had a craving for a big mess of fried shrimp so I went down to the place I sold my boat to and picked up a few pounds of fresh ones. Just caught that day 13-15 per pound white shrimp. I fried up 24 that night and I really must be getting old I couldn't eat but eight. I guess I shouldn't have tanked up on cheese grits and salad. Anyway my wife had a nice lunch at school the next day with the ones she couldn't eat also.
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Those things safe to eat... what with the oil being dumped into the ocean down there all the time?
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oh man! Those things look amazing!!! buttered, garlic salt, hot and fast on the grill!
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@orkan Don't eat Chinese farm raised shrimp. Nothing to worry about with these.
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@bigfoot Nice! Big critters they are!
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I don't worry too much about the seafood caught around here. We have a bunch of marine biologists stationed here that do several samples weekly for fish and shrimp also oysters that include water quality testing and also tissue testing. Lots of money generated through the sales of license at least they have a few good programs they spend it on. The oysters are really regulated and about time they are.