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.
The popular bridges such as Mather’s have 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 as folklore suggests. Other popular locations include Pineda Causeway near Patrick AFB, Bennet (SR-528) Causeway in Cocoa, and Eau Gallie Bridge 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 moves 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. 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? 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.
Warm waters and Mother Nature may have changed our sport around. We also had a higher number of Asian Tiger shrimp caught locally. This winter season was by far the most bizarre season ever. Currently, we have scouts in Daytona looking for that first cast net full. We are not in a typical pattern this year. Jacksonville is reporting some activity early in season.
