After a 10-day delay, inshore shrimp season opens today. Louisiana Shrimp Association President Acy Cooper says the later start to the season is actually a very good thing.
“They wanted to open August 1, and everybody was pretty much against it because we still had a lot of small shrimp. So they wanted to leave it closed for a couple more weeks to see if we could get a little bit bigger size,” Cooper said.
Cooper says bigger shrimp fetches more money – and given how imports undercut local shrimpers, that’s very important.
“We need bigger shrimp. We can’t work on smaller shrimp and think we’re going to make it the way the imports have been killing us. Our prices have been low on smaller shrimp, and we need better prices in order for us to survive,” Cooper explained.
Cooper says the 10-day delay in shrimp season yields a very significant difference in the size of the shrimp.
” Doing it now, they’re going to jump two counts, and if they’re 36-40 per pound, then they can jump up as high as 21-25 per pound,” Cooper said.
How much shrimp grows is dependent on water conditions, including temperature, salinity and oxygen content. The delayed start to shrimp season also means the shrimp population will remain stable.
