It’s a great time of year to catch shrimp, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to find
To the casual observer, few things appear easier than shrimping. Most people catch them in a long-handled dip net. There are no hooks to bait, no gaffs needed. Just drive your boat around and scoop them up.
Biscayne Bay can be loaded with shrimp this time of year. The tiny crustaceans drift at night with the outgoing tide toward Haulover Inlet or Government Cut. But if the shrimp aren’t running, then you’re just out for a boat ride.
The only sure thing about shrimping is you never know where they will be or when they will be there.
The best nights seem to be 10 days before and 10 days after a full moon. The best time seems to be the top of the outgoing tide, when the shrimp start swimming out to the ocean. The best place seems to be Biscayne Bay from the MacArthur Causeway to the Rickenbacker Causeway, although they also can run north and south of there.
Shrimp can be scarce, then suddenly they’re everywhere. Using dip nets, recreational shrimpers can quickly scoop up the daily limit of five gallons of shrimp with the heads on.
“When it’s really good, it’s just like nonstop shrimp going by,” said Harry Vernon of Capt. Harry’s Fishing Supply in Miami.
As a teenager, Vernon used to dip-net shrimp from the catwalk at the old Rickenbacker Causeway. He recalled one night when there were so many shrimp, the water turned pink and he quickly filled his five-gallon bucket.
There is no rhyme or reason as to when and where shrimp will run. I have been fishing for tarpon at night at Haulover Inlet when shrimp suddenly started drifting past our boat. We forgot about fishing, grabbed a dip net and started catching shrimp. When the run slowed, we used some of the shrimp to bait our hooks for the tarpon, which had been feasting on the shrimp.
Before they go to the trouble of launching their boats, serious shrimpers will check out the bay from bridges. If they see a lot of shrimp, they will get their boats.
A big part of shrimping for Vernon is going with his friends and family. He invited me and my son to join him and his two daughters one night at a spot where Vernon had seen commercial boats netting shrimp for three consecutive nights.
As the tide started to fall, Vernon and his friend Craig Hardie anchored the boat downcurrent from a bridge and put an underwater fishing light on each side of the boat. Then four of us stood by with dip nets and watched for shrimp to drift our way.
At first, the shrimp came one or two at a time. As the outgoing tide continued, the shrimping, punctuated by laughter and gleeful catch reports, got better.
“Four in a row! Five in a row! Six! Let’s see if I can make it seven!” said Vernon, who couldn’t have been any more excited if he had just caught a sailfish tripleheader in a billfish tournament.
The shrimp would come in flurries — two here, another one there, then three more. There would be a brief lull, then another flurry. In less than four hours, Vernon’s 5-gallon bucket was nearly filled with shrimp.
Netting a shrimp can be tougher than it looks. Sometimes the shrimp would drift right into the net. Other times, they would go deep or jump from the net.
For the deep ones, Vernon said to lower the net and bring it up to push the shrimp to the surface. For the ones that jumped away from our 8-foot-long nets, Vernon stood at the boat’s transom with a net with an extension that reached out to 12 feet.
Vernon sells those nets, as well as an 18-footer that is designed for those who shrimp from bridges, piers and docks, at his family’s tackle store at 8501 NW 7th Ave., just west of I-95 between 95th and 79th streets.
The store also sells replacement netting as well a variety of submersible lights, which make it easier to see shrimp in the water.
The only other thing you need is the ability to keep going until you catch the shrimp running. That could be early in the night or they might not run until the middle of the night.
If you can stay awake for those late runs, you will go home tired but with plenty of shrimp to eat boiled, grilled or sautéed for the next several nights.
