June 22, 2o16 — North Carolina commercial and recreational fisherman reeled in record harvests last year.
Milder weather allowed fishermen to work longer, harvesting more shrimp and hard blue crab in the latter months, according to the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.
Shrimp landings increased by 94 percent — the highest since 2008. November 2015 shrimp landings increased by 307 percent from November 2014. Hard blue crabs also increased by 23 percent to 31 million pounds.
“We had the best spring shrimp we’ve ever had,” said Phil Guyer, owner of Coastal Seafood and Propane in Leland. “In fact, we saw shrimp in March and our hometown shrimper said that they’ve never caught shrimp in March. We had a really good year.”
While shrimp and crab harvest flourished, other species in the top five — spiny dogfish, summer flounder, Atlantic croaker — plummeted.
Recreational fishermen caught an estimated 10.2 million fish in 2015, 6.8 percent more seafood than in 2014. Fishermen also released 6 percent more fish in 2015 than in 2014.
Similarly, coastal recreational fishing in 2015 also increased substantially. Dolphin, yellowfin tuna, cobia and wahoo were the top five recreational species harvested. Dolphin catches increased by 132 percent, while wahoo rose by 66 percent and cobia rose 62 percent.The increase in dolphin, wahoo and cobia is likely due to the decline of yellowfin tuna harvests, which was down 10.7 percent last year, Marine Fisheries stated in a news release.