It is late summer and the conditions have finally conspired to make shrimp available to those who try to catch them on the White Oak River.

n talking to my friend, Ed, who is a life long resident of the Crystal Coast, I recently learned that shrimping on the river is a dying hobby. It cannot be considered an occupation because you could not make any money to speak of from it.

It seems that folks like Ed who continue to do it are doing it because they enjoy shrimping not because there is much money in it. A few years ago Ed said their were twenty-five boats on the river. Now most of the time now there are one o

I recently heard that prices for river shrimp were at 31 cents per pound if you could find a buyer. Most of the river shrimp are smaller so they are a lot of work to clean.

The batch pictured in the post probably took hours to clean.

Cleaning shrimp even with much larger shrimp is something of a labor of love. Taking the shells off and de-veiring small river shrimp might qualify someone for sainthood.

I was actually sort of excited to eat some of the shrimp that I like to imagine the estuary around my home has helped to raise.

The shrimp we ate had been swimming in the White Oak the night before. I wonder how long it takes for a Chinese shrimp to make it to our shores?

Certainly once you have eaten fresh Crystal Coast shrimp, it is easy to wonder why someone would try anything else