Crescent City Shrimpers Elated Over April Catch : ’87 Could Be Banner Year, Thanks to Hard Work, Nature’s Help

These are banner days for the shrimp boats operating out of this small coastal town 15 miles south of the Oregon border.

“We have never seen anything like it. The boats caught as much shrimp off Crescent City in April as they usually get in an entire seven-month season,” said Ken Butler, 48, plant manager of Eureka Fisheries, the state’s biggest shrimp processor.

Crescent City is California’s largest shrimp port, and more than 3 million pounds of the tiny pink crustaceans were landed here last month. The shrimp season runs through Oct. 31. That means, at the going rate of 70 cents a pound for shell and meat, the Crescent City shrimpers earned $2.1 million collectively last month.

After landing, the shrimp are frozen and shipped throughout the United States and Europe for use in shrimp cocktails and shrimp creole.

Why so many shrimp this year? Tom Jow, shrimp expert for the state Department of Fish and Game, says no one really knows for sure, but it is believed that fluctuations in sea conditions such as temperature and availability of food for the shrimp have created the abundance.

“We’re lucky. It seems no matter how many shrimp are caught, the demand is always there. Shrimp cocktail has a great popularity,” said Butler, a transplanted San Pedro fisherman.

Actually, the huge April haul hasn’t been too surprising; 1986 was also a banner year. Crescent City accounted for 5.62 million pounds of the total California shrimp catch of 6.98 million pounds last year. By comparison, in 1985--considered a typical year for shrimping off the California coast--3.19 million pounds were landed at Crescent City, with a statewide catch of 3.37 million pounds.

Last year, 35 trawlers shrimped off Crescent City, but this year the number has increased to 60 boats. Shrimp boats also work out of Eureka, Fort Bragg and Morro Bay in California. In fact, cocktail shrimp are also an important fishery for Oregon and Washington. Oregon shrimpers landed 34 million pounds last year, while those in Washington landed 12 million pounds.

It’s dawn-to-dusk work for the shrimpers these days. They drag their nylon nets from the back of their boats, scooping up shrimp as the crustaceans feed during daylight hours.

The boats, with crews of two to four, fish the green mud bottom of the Pacific, eight to 15 miles offshore. Smaller boats go out at 4 a.m. and return at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. Larger boats are at sea up to four days.

Storms are common off Crescent City, and the seas are often treacherous. Two shrimp boats have already sunk this year, with the loss of two fishermen.

“This is an incredible year so far,” said Jim Evanow, 28, skipper since he was 17 of the 85-foot trawler Frank & Marie, as he and two crewmen unloaded 30,000 pounds of shrimp after four days out.

For Evanow it has also been a sad year. His father, Tom Evanow, 53, a Crescent City fisherman for 40 years, and his cousin, Tim Evanow, 25, drowned and their 54-foot boat Miss Lisa, named after Tom Evanow’s daughter, sank in a storm when it plowed into the rocks 200 yards off Crescent City. The two men were returning with their catch of shrimp after four days at sea during the first week of April.

Although there are nine shrimp buyers in Crescent City, Eureka Fisheries handled 45% of the catch last year. Its headquarters, located 75 miles south in Eureka, had gross sales of more than $45 million in 1986 from catching, processing and distributing salmon, crab, bottom fish and shrimp.

In Eureka Fisheries’ huge 16,000-square-foot processing plant in Crescent City, a Rube Goldberg-like steam shrimp peeler separates the shell from the shrimp body. Agitators on the peeler shake the meat free from the shell.

It takes about 160 shrimp with shells attached to make a pound. But when the shell--which represent 75% of the crustacean’s weight--is removed, the number in a pound rises to about 600.

Shrimp are frozen in five-pound cans and bags at the plant, under the Eureka label. The retail price is $6 or more a pound.

Butler said that for years people have been trying to find a use for the shells.

“They have no value, so far as we know. Professors have suggested using the shells as an additive for plant growth, as a food supplement for chickens or pigs. But nothing has worked so far,” he said.