Shrimping season opens in full off South Carolina coast

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – A southern seafood staple will soon be more widely available at docks and markets along the coast as South Carolina’s shrimping season fully opens.

Commercial shrimp trawling opened in all legal state waters on Tuesday morning.

Officials with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) said the season typically begins in late May after opening eight smaller provisional areas.

Those areas, which opened on April 19, allowed shrimpers to start harvesting some larger white shrimp farther offshore while protecting the spawning population closer to the shore – the goal is to ensure most female white shrimp have already spawned at least once.

“We’ve been conducting weekly sampling along our coast since late April to document that spawning activity,” said biologist Jeff Brunson, who leads the agency’s crustacean management.

Opening the season too soon could mean a reduction in the size of white shrimp in the fall, which are offspring of the white shrimp.

“Given the lack of extreme cold weather over the winter, the abundance of white shrimp in the estuaries throughout the state and the advanced ovarian development of shrimp, we feel good about the timing of the season opener,” said Brunson.