Shrimpers Complain of Worst Year Yet : Gulf Coast Shrimpers’ Lament: Rivers Too High, Prices Too Low, Catch Too Small : Shellfish: Floods, imports and other factors combine to make for a disappointing season.

Every shrimping season, Earl Fayard notices that there are fewer boats along the Mississippi Gulf Coast waterfront he roamed as a kid 30 years ago.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Fayard, who owns Ocean Springs Seafood Co., a processing company. “The market conditions, the catch, the weather, the economic conditions of the country, the whole nine yards--everything combined makes it one of the worst years ever.”

Fayard said he has seen the once-proud Ocean Springs fishing fleet shrink at least 40%.

“They can’t pay their bills,” he said of the fishermen. “This year’s going to put a lot more of them out of business.”

On the first day of the season here last month, the state Bureau of Marine Resources estimated the number of shrimp boats off Mississippi at 1,320. Two years ago, there were more than 2,000 boats.

Louisiana and Alabama also are suffering because of overfishing and cheap shrimp from abroad. And flooding in some areas has added to the problems.

State officials and marine biologists caution that shrimpers and processors like to complain as much as they like to fish. If they aren’t griping about the scarcity of shrimp or the low prices, it’s the out-of-state fishermen, observers say.

This season, however, people who depend on Mississippi’s $180-million-a-year industry have reason to worry.

The season began June 13--two weeks late--and the catch was good at first. At the Port of Biloxi, for instance, 400,000 pounds of shrimp were caught the first week. But experts say the catch will dwindle as the season winds down.

In June, 1990, about 2.4 million pounds of shrimp were netted in Mississippi waters--far short of the average of 3.5 million pounds.

Louisiana, which closes its brown shrimp season this month, was expected to haul in more than 10 million pounds of shrimp for May, according to preliminary state estimates. Louisiana docks recorded 23 millions pounds in May, 1990.

Parts of Mobile Bay were closed after Alabama’s brown shrimp season opened last month, because overflowing rivers flushed out the estuaries into the bay, forcing the young shrimp into open waters.

The rains that flooded many of Mississippi’s rivers also diluted the salinity of the coastal waters, killing many young shrimp and sending the rest into deeper, saltier waters. Mississippi’s shrimp season was delayed because there were not enough adult shrimp.

Biologist John Ogle of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs said the salinity of the waters was three parts per 1,000, rather than the usual 12 parts per 1,000. Full oceanic strength, which promotes optimum shrimp growth, is 32 parts per 1,000, he said.

John Luksa of Bay St. Louis hauled up 600 pounds of undersized, brown shrimp off Gulfport on opening day. He sold the shrimp for $1 to $2 a pound, hardly worth the trouble, he said.

“I didn’t go back out because the shrimp are too small,” Luksa said. “You don’t get enough money for small shrimp.”

Luksa said he is earning about half what he once did because of increased operating costs and the decreased catch.

Shrimpers and processors hope for a strong white shrimp season, which begins in August. White shrimp thrive in water that is less salty than brown shrimp.