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Shrimpers reflect on the blessings and curses of their life as they prepare for the summer hiatus mandated by state law.
By JOSH ZIMMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 4, 2000
HOMOSASSA -- It's 5:15 a.m. While most of the world sleeps, Homosassa Seafood breathes with life.
Big lights bathe the docks in yellow, illuminating the tired shrimpers tying their boats to old wood pylons amid clouds of diesel smoke.
They greet one another like relatives at a reunion. And they work quickly, unloading their catch into metal measuring baskets for delivery trucks that feed a greedy angling industry spoiled by live bait.
Die-hard laborers with thick hands, the shrimpers operate on the brink of exhaustion through a mix of caffeine, nicotine and adrenaline.
They stay alert long enough to clean off their grungy boats and ruminate over the last 10 hours spent trawling far from civilization. In an hour, most of them will be sleeping off the experience.
Alton Pierce Jr. clutched his Budweiser, his happy demeanor fitting the party atmosphere. In a matter of days, such scenes will become rarer as the industry readies itself for the annual summer slowdown.
"Right now's when it quits," said Pierce, who swigged beer one morning last week and looked forward to a trip to Daytona Beach. "That's our off-season. I got stone crab (trap) repairs. Maintenance time."
July 1 marked the start of the state-imposed prohibition on commercial food shrimping, the segment that supplies restaurants and markets. It runs through Aug. 31.
For the shrimpers, however, the season really ended with the full moon. Through some quirk of nature, the shrimping remains excellent until that time. But once the moon starts to wane, the hauls drop precipitously.
"Seven days after the full moon it's over," said Pierce, the son of Homosassa Seafood owner Duncan Pierce.
Shrimping doesn't come to a complete halt. Bait shrimping in state waters can continue despite the fact that there is much less to catch as new hatchlings begin to mature.
The regulation is unpopular with shrimpers here. They claim that once August comes around, state waters are ready to be fished again for the larger shrimp that earn them more money.
Roger Brooks, who harvests both bait and commercial food shrimp, thinks the industry has become a slave to anglers, represented by tourists and people who don't care about the shrimpers.
"They need them to feed their family," Brooks said of the commercial food shrimp. "It should be constitutionally allowed. It's public property."
Growing up around the water is a common thread among this clique of skilled workers Alton Pierce proudly calls "a different breed." Brooks, 39, is no different.
His father was a fisherman who moved the family from Florida's east coast to Homosassa when Brooks was a child. He said he started shrimping when he was 8 years old.
"My brother owned a boat," he said as he chain-smoked cigarettes and guided one of Homosassa Seafood's trawlers toward waters just south of Citrus County's border with Hernando County. "I slept in school."
Brooks is a respected man at the docks, long ago earning the nickname "the Stud King" for the size shrimp he caught. The paunch and the gray, thinning hair make him look older than his age. But he has youthful eyes and energy.
For the past three years, Lena Harless has been his main help. Harless, 38, is a mother of two teenagers and, like Brooks, she never finished high school. They work comfortably around one another. She is the much quieter of the two.
"We can't stand each other," he said with a grin. "But she's a good worker."
Harless said she enjoys being on the water. Without a formal education, she doesn't see where she could earn as much money around Homosassa. Most nights she covers herself in rubber with heavy boots, a body-length shell and gloves. Unlike Brooks, she doesn't relish putting her hands on the shrimp and the odd shallow water creatures that get dumped back into the water for the benefit of porpoises.
"I like it," she said, a rose tattoo covering a spot on her right hand where her ex-husband's name used to be. "It's better money than I can make anywhere else."
Brooks stopped far offshore with the lights of Florida Power Corp.'s Crystal River energy facility a small flicker in the distance. He planned to fish in waters 12 to 14 feet deep most of the night. It was around 8:30 p.m. They had to be in by about 5:15 a.m. to meet the delivery truck.
After the two-hour ride, he released a pair of booms. The long nets are attached to frames with rollers that run along the bottom without digging up the rich aquatic grasses. But it's still light out, so he waits. The nets can't be dropped until the sun goes down.
Shrimpers have a lot of time to think. Years ago, Brooks planned to get rich and live in a big house with his wife. He was "the Stud King" and owned his own boat, which meant he could stay out for days at a time.
But the lifestyle puts stress on relationships. Trying to salvage his marriage, he cut back on his trips. That was three divorces ago.
Still, he loves the job and the bad that comes with it.
"Sometimes it's a miserable job," Brooks said. "Sometimes it's the most beautiful place on earth. Full moon on the water. You're free."
The money was good this year, he said. They regularly came home with $150 apiece in their pockets.
Still, while catches have remained relatively stable over the years, so has the price of shrimp, Brooks said. Shrimpers earn about the same money they always did.
Society doesn't put enough value on a shrimper's sacrifices, he said. They are hemmed in on one side by the state and on the other by anglers.
People just want to eat the shrimp or hook it to a fishing pole and pay as little as possible for the privilege, he said. He thinks the state caved in to the recreational anglers when it set the two-month ban on commercial food shrimping while allowing bait shrimping to continue year-round.
"Everybody hates us," he said. "We're ugly, we're an eyesore. We're drunks, we're pot smokers.
"Without us working it'd devastate the whole state economy," Brooks said. "In my opinion, they don't need no regulations on fishing. The strong will survive. You can't catch all the shrimp. God made fish dumb enough to catch but not dumb enough to catch 'em all."
The state has different ideas about public property.
In 1993, wildlife regulators decided to prohibit shrimping along a 500,000-acre stretch of coastal waters all the way from the Tampa area to Apalachicola. That was when they also created the two-month moratorium on commercial food shrimping within state waters.
In return, shrimpers no longer had to submit to size counts.
The state continues to view the law as a compromise. Phil Steele, associate research scientist at the Florida Marine Research Institute, said the regulation is succeeding. Shrimp populations fluctuate from year to year, but over the long term, the supply is stable.
Even the current drought is not expected to drag their numbers down, he said. Predators attracted to the saltier waters are feeding on the shrimp, but each reproductive shrimp lays thousands of eggs.
Jason Madison, a commercial food shrimper who docks at Shrimp Landing in Crystal River, thinks the two-month ban should affect bait harvesters, too. His monthly bills total $3,000, he said.
"I don't think it's very fair," he said. "Two months is a long stretch."
Darkness was only minutes away. Brooks prepared to release the nets into the waters. Then he and Harless would wait 45 minutes to an hour before drawing up their catches. Only six more hours to go. Then they would turn around and head home.
They hauled in 8,500 shrimp before returning to Homosassa Seafood the next morning. It was a small catch, but it's the slow season. The company pays them about $10 per 1,000.
Until a week or two ago, they were taking in $150 or more each trip. This night, they earned $47.50 apiece, Harless said. No one doubts the shrimp -- and better paydays -- will return.
Nine hours earlier, Brooks had waited patiently as the sun dipped below the horizon, unleashing an explosion of reds and purples. He thought of his father.
"My dad said, "You spend one-third of your life working, you might as well enjoy it,' " Brooks said as he gazed into the distance.
"Look at that sky. Whew!"
-- A version of this story previously appeared in some regional editions of the St. Petersburg Times.