The Shrimp Are Running

When I went down to visit the fishing piers this evening at the A. Max Brewer Bridge to see if the shrimp are running in the Indian River, I ran into a Friday night block party, complete with a live band.

I drove down to the bridge at around 8:30pm and had to run around the parking lot twice before I lucked up on a parking space.

The cars were lined up almost to the park, and there were a ton of people shrimping, fishing, drinking, and generally having a blast at the pavilion.

I noticed several people cast netting for shrimp along the seawall, which is unusual for this area.

You normally see fishermen cast netting for shrimp when they bait a spot.   This is common practice farther up north in the Jacksonville, Fl. area, but I guess they brought the practice down here.

Anyway, the guys on the seawall were cast netting a few shrimp on almost every cast.  The shrimp were in the medium to large category, but they guys told me they usually get a few jumbos every night.

I took some pics for this site and moved on down to the lower fishing pier to see how the guys who were dip netting shrimp were faring.

 Just about everybody had some shrimp in their 5 gallon buckets.  

A few guys had almost a half a pull, and one guy had a garbage can loaded with a bunch of shrimp.

It seemed like the guys dip netting closer to the sea wall were getting the majority of the shrimp, possibly because it was windy and the water was choppy.

The air temperature was in the low 70s, which made shrimping tonight pretty enjoyable and with the live band that was playing, who could complain.

I took a couple of videos, some more pics, and moved up to the higher fishing pier to see how the guys over there were doing.

Again, everybody had some shrimp in their buckets, with a couple of the "regulars" doing much better.  Everybody on the upper pier was dip netting.  I believe you're not allowed to cast net from the piers.

I brought along a rod with a DOA Bait buster and tossed it around a bit.  Got a couple of strikes and hooked two slot size sea trout that I shook off before landing them.

Most of the trout were small in the area, and I didn't want to interfere with the shrimpers so after the second trout, I decided to head back to the house.

I talked to a couple of sport shrimpers on the way out who told me that the shrimping had been going gangbusters for the past month or so and they expected it to continue throughout March.

I compiled this video of the evenings  shrimping, complete with the band.

It almost makes me want to grab my cast net and stake out a spot on the seawall.

As long as the shrimp are running, I might just give it a try.

Till next time, Tight  Lines.