Florida Shrimping Dipping Shrimp Net Process Guide Charter

To give you an idea of shrimping process for those who are new or have never done it I will give a brief overview of the process.

There are three boat ramps I launch from. One is off Washington Street in New Smyrna Beach, the next is off Park Street in Edgewater just across from the Edgewater Police Station and the third is the one in Riverbreeze Park in Oak Hill. 95% of the time I launch from the ramp in Edgewater off Park Street.

There are times that we may be only three hundred yards from the ramp or I may run south a few miles. This, as all aspects of shrimping, are dictated by the tide! There is around a three hour difference in tide. If it were high tide at Ponce Inlet at 1:00pm, it woud not be high tide until around 4:00pm at the Edgewater boat ramp. The further south you go, the bigger - longer the difference is.

I start out from the ramp once the boat is launched I have a bright side light that shines down on the water surface. The reason for this is so I can spot some shrimp on the move. These shrimp mostly crawl down the river bottom. When the tide starts to drop/move ( outgoing ) it makes it much easier for them to swim. Shrimp generally follow a line-vein of current and will run that line. Perhaps it is follow the leader but that is what they do. I will zig and zag heading south into the tide until I/we find a pretty consistent showing of shrimp. The water we fish/shrimp in is anywhere from 9 to 14 feet deep. Sometimes they will run the edge of the channel. You will see commercial guys that have an underwater bow light that obviously lights the water up even brighter. They are doing the same thing - trying to find that line.

Once I see a good bit of shrimp coming through I will drop my anchor. Once the anchor is set I will drop one underwater light and get a better read on what is moving down the river. The sealed twelve volt underwater LED light is set to be down around six-seven feet from the surface. This of course all depends on the depth of water I am in. My lights have a heavy lead weight and a line attached to that with a clip that I can easily adjust the depth that the light floats/rises to. The lights have a float so they don’t sink to the bottom. These shrimp do NOT like light and will react to it. So as they come down the river they will rise or skirt around it. But with the light below them now makes them visible in the way of a silhouette. Sometimes they are super easy to see and other times they run deeper

There are tricks to setting the lights out properly so you can kind of herd-steer them into your dipping range. When they get close to the boat you will be waiting like the above water hockey goalie – difference is you want them to go into the net – not stay out. Sometimes they are very cooperative and will swim right into the net – I refer to them as “stupid shrimp” – the bigger shrimp can swim right into your net and flick-propel themselves right back out like a rocket! This will and does happen no matter how good and experienced you are. If we have shrimp coming down the river at a pretty good rate you will learn and see that show REAL QUICK. I have had more than one soft spoken-demure lady blurt out some nice profanities when they have those LARGE shrimp shoot out of their net like a bullet. It will happen to YOU and I hope it does, because that means we are catchin!!!! They won’t all get away!

I also run a frame net sometimes off the back or side of my boat. That is basically a BIG dip net with a much bigger-wider mouth. Both your dip net and this frame net look like a BIG wind sock.

There are some pretty decent on line lessons and videos on YouTube. Captain Lee Noga is a pretty good teacher with good skills of oration. She is a very experienced shrimp/dipper as well! Worth taking a look at some of her videos online.

I have taken many friends out with me over the years and EVERY ONE of them had a blast and enjoyed the shrimping show! I hope YOU get to see the show too!!!!!!!!!!