A Firsthand Account of Amelia Island’s Historic Shrimping Industry
Over the past decade, we’ve had the great pleasure of capturing the beautiful and diverse stories of Amelia Island, FL for their Visitor’s Bureau. Many of those stories I’ll never forget, and this month’s adventure is definitely one of those memories that will linger for years to come.
As it is with any fishing story, the adventure began at daybreak as we gathered on the northern tip of Amelia Island to meet up with Captain Wilson and his historic wooden shrimp boat, Three Cees’s. Though the coast to both our north and south was largely clouded over, we were treated to a stunning sunrise over the marshy interior of the island.
Before long we were underway, cutting through the calm waters of the Amelia and St Marys Rivers as we journeyed into the channel and past historic Fort Clinch. As we passed by the mile-long jetties that guard the entrance to the naturally-occurring deep water port, Captain Wilson, with the help of a few folks on ICY Picture’s video team, prepared the boat for shrimping with what struck me as a surprisingly manual and intricate sort of industrial dance.
For the next several hours we plied our adopted trade, taking in sample nets as we traveled up and down the coastal shelf, some 3 miles off the shore of Amelia Island.
As the coolness of morning gave way to a sunny and warm afternoon, we began the equally intricate process of bringing the net and its sweet shrimp harvest aboard – a process that took nearly an hour from beginning to end. Apart from steering the boat, which is where I found myself at the end of the day, the work was hard and not free from danger. But the reward of shrimp that quite literally could not have been fresher, and of a dys work well done outweighed the hazards.
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