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G eorge said the mouth of the C ape Fear
was the first spot to hit back in the 60s,
where the shrimp averaged 21 to 25 count,
or 21 to 25 shrimp per pound, in the peak
of the season. N ow, he says, the shrimp
there have all but disappeared. Potter had
been out the week before and brought in
20 to 30 count. V ery large shrimp are 16
count.
“A t low tide it smells like hog waste,”
Potter says of the river.
G eorge still fishes in the area, but has all
but given up on shrimping there. L ast year,
hearing that the shrimp had made a small
comeback, he threw in his nets to test his
luck.
“I dragged my nets and they were all
mucked up with this slimy chemical. I
called the environmental people and they
said they’d send somebody down there.
W hether they did or not I have no way of
knowing,” G eorge says.
R ich C arpenter in the M arine Fisheries
division of the N orth C arolina D epartment
of E nvironment and N atural R esources in
M orehead C ity says that he remembers a
Clockwise from left: Julian A nderson and
John Broome cull a sample from the try net
aboard the Plan B. John “T ookie” Potter
unloads the day’s catch from the Cape
Point in S outhport. Long-time waterman
Bud G eorge sold his shrimping boat, Miss
Dorothy, last year. Photo courtesy of Bud
George. A handful of R oyce Potter’s haul.
R oyce Potter weighs and ices shrimp at the
end of the day.
similar report issued last year, but that they
get so many calls related to the area, there’s
no way to know if it was the same one. A ll
reports, he said, are thoroughly investigated.
D anny G alloway, a long-time shrimper
out of H olden Beach was quoted in The
Carolina Watermen: Bug Hunters and
Boatbuilders. A uthored by R ichard and
Barbara K elly and published in 1993,
G alloway’s comments then about the C ape
Fear predicament ring true today:
“O ur main shrimp comes from the C ape
Fear, the biggest river. T hey got paper
There are no more than a couple of commercial shrimpers docked at Wrightsville
and all but the lonesome C ape Point have vanished from Southport, once known
as the fishing capital of the North Carolina coast.
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