September 2, 2023 — Dan Ellison started shrimping when he was 12, bringing a change of clothes on the boat so he could make it to school after early-morning outings. He would sketch shrimp boats in class, before quitting school in eighth grade to pursue his passion.
“I couldn’t do what a doctor or lawyer does,” Mr. Ellison, 61, said. “But they couldn’t do what I do. You’ve got to know so much to survive.”
He joined his father shrimping and fishing in tiny Horseshoe Beach, Fla., a business that took a significant hit when the state banned net fishing in the 1990s. In a good year, he said, he makes about $30,000.
“It’s just a dying breed,” Mr. Ellison said of shrimpers in the Big Bend region, where the Florida peninsula meets the Panhandle. And the damage wrought by Hurricane Idalia presents a whole new challenge.