Captain Lee Noga
Winter shrimping has come to an end in Volusia County and North Brevard. What does this mean? This means all eyes are on Melbourne Causeways and bridges. They are wind driven but early reports show there is some activity vs. nonexistent last season. The popular bridges such as Mather’s is a small piece of real estate and you have to be willing to start at sun down to sun rise. Typically, when North Brevard shuts down, South Brevard picks up as the shrimp migrate South as folklore suggests. Other popular locations include traditional locations such as Pineda Causeway near Patricks AFB, Bennet (SR-528) Causeway in Cocoa & Eau Gallie in Melbourne (US-192). The North wind is preferred. South coming in second with East/West coming in as UN-popular. Wind is the primary condition that locomotes the shrimp in S. Brevard. Pineda is the top spot for trapping for many. Typical summer day time cast net shrimping starts this month in S. Daytona to Jacksonville area. My concern is this season is going to be atypical because a huge bio mass of medium to jumbo shrimp were pushed into Central Florida after Hurricane Matthew. Full pulls of cast netting white shrimp were reported starting in December. WHAT did I just say? This specie should not be be such a huge player in our winter shrimping which is the pinks and browns. To be honest, I had not caught a white shrimp in over 3 years. But this season, Oak Hill loaded up on jumbo white shrimp averaging 30-40 count a night for each boat on average. This is UN-unprecedented. They should not have been a huge player this winter. Did hurricane Matthew blow this bio mass of white shrimp into Central Florida? We can’t rule this out. Now here is my problem. Whites are our July – November chase from S. Daytona to Jacksonville. We just had a 6 month run of jumbo white shrimp this winter from the wrong areas (South Brevard-Edgewater). Will our “freak” winter run of jumbo whites impact our typical summer white specie run S. Daytona to Jacksonville? Hurricane Matthew delivered a glancing blow to east coast which I believe killed off a all or part of generation of winter shrimp (they were to young to withstand the blow). My same concern applies to the infant shrimp buried up inshore North of Ponce Inlet to Jacksonville. Did they survive Hurricane Matthew and grow up to be cowboys? We are about to find out. Last season we had volume but we did not have good size. It has taken 3 seasons just to get volume back in S. Daytona to Flagler. With all the white shrimp that got pushed into Central Florida in the Fall, did they lay eggs ? Are white shrimp a new addition permanently in our winter season? Do we even care about the summer season in Central Florida after filling up on jumbo whites all winter? Warm waters & Mother nature may have changed our sport around. We also had a higher number of Asian Tiger shrimp caught locally. This winter season by far is the most bizarre season ever. Currently, we have scouts in Daytona trying to answer all these questions. We are NOT in a typical pattern this year. Jacksonville is reporting some activity early in season. Join us on Face Book, “Florida Shrimping Academy – Tips & Tricks” for education, updates and intel reports.
Captain Lee Noga
Academy of shrimping
www.leenoga.com