June 18, 2025 — A ban on inshore shrimp trawling is moving quickly toward a vote in the North Carolina Senate.
On Tuesday morning, the provision was inserted into House Bill 442, which deals with recreational fishing of flounder and red snapper. It’s scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon.
It would outlaw shrimp trawling except in Atlantic Ocean waters at least a half-mile offshore, matching regulations in Virginia and South Carolina.
“We’re the only state on the East Coast that allows that,” Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, told reporters late Tuesday, saying the issue has “needed attention for a long time.”
Commercial shrimpers say their industry would be decimated.
“Shrimping is the lifeblood of a lot of counties,” commercial fisherman Thomas Newman said during the Senate Rules Committee meeting Tuesday. “You’re going to cut off 75% of the shrimp we produce.”
The state awarded 270 commercial shrimp licenses in 2023. Those shrimpers hauled in over 6.5 million pounds of shrimp, worth an estimated $14.1 million, according to Division of Marine Fisheries statistics.
Around half of those shrimp were landed in the Pamlico Sound, the same report says, and that’s been the case since 1994.