A Case of the Crabs
(Food • )
The shrimpers in Fulton still are confined by law to Aransas Bay, but they’ve begun scooping it out pretty thoroughly and are anxious for shrimp season to start on the Gulf side of the barrier islands.
The first two boats that came in this morning had some decent blue crabs, but their shrimp haul was small, the volume much less than their captains would’ve liked and their nets had scooped up a lot of grass.
With diesel at $2.30 a gallon, they can’t afford to make more than one run per day, a Cajun shrimper explained, complaining bitterly about high fuel costs, low shrimp prices and government rules and regulations that keep men with knowledge and equipment from shrimping.
The little one-man shrimp boats in Fulton launch an hour or two before sunrise, pull their nets back and forth across the blue-green bay waters east of Rockport and might be done with their run before 9 a.m.
If you can get to the wharf when the shrimpers dock, they’ll sell you their catch on the spot – fresher by two to four hours and cheaper than the seafood markets nearby. Some of the local stores are selling the large shrimp for $7 a pound, the Cajun said. But the markets are paying him $2 a pound for his catch. He could drive inland with a pickup truck full of shrimp and get a better price, but then who would man the boat for the next day’s catch?
Blues are a by-product of the shrimpers’ efforts, although given my choice I would opt for the sweet crab meat every time, even though you’ll expend almost as many calories shelling them as you gain back eating them. I bought the entire morning’s crab catch from a Vietnamese shrimper – 16 pounds worth which, with two bags of ice, filled up my cooler. The cost was a dollar a pound for some of the freshest and tastiest seafood to be found, and it is with renewed intensity that I envy my compadres living on the South Texas coast
→ B.Dunn, Jul 02, 2009, 04 59 pm
