Not me Stam....

I just got my halo back from the cleaners.

Can I have some after you get them cleaned and cooked? LOL

Nice haul.

Congratulations on the fine looking catch.
Enjoy! They shure taste a lot better than any frozen, grocery store shrimp.

Big Daddy,

Have you ever considered being a hand model?

No not a hand model.....

Maybe a hands on A model.

Start serving and I'll book a few trips!

Yesterday was my first day of shrimpin' ever....the two guys with me were also shrimpin' rookies. We had two borrowed pots (one legal, one illegal we came to find out), one had 400' of cord, the other had 275', we do not have a pot puller.

Went over to Hat Island area and dropped the short cord pot in about 225' and the long cord pot in over 325'. Went and got some live bait for lings, came back and did our first pull after about an 1.5 hour soak. We were shocked when we pulled our first pot (the shallow one) and it had 79 beautiful shrimpies in it....deep one had about 30.

So we re-baited and put both pots in about the same area that our kick ass pot was in, about 225' of water. Tried for some lings, came back and only found one of our pots, and it was empty! We were in shock again....one pot was long gone and one had nothing in it. WTF? Extreme ripper tide?

Questions for the experts:
What is your process once the shrimp are on board? Keep them alive? Clean them and ice them immediately? And what is your preferred methods of cooking them? Hard to go wrong with any method.....those things are so damn good eating. Please don't tell me to watch Forrest Gump.

Ike

Ike, I am no shrimping expert, but Kaiser D has been showing me the ropes a bit. We usually just chuck them into a cooler or bucket straight from the pot. If you aren't in a hurry you can pop the heads-then and there, but we are usually trying to get the pots back down and after lings in a hurry. They seem to keep pretty well out of direct sun and heat. A cooler with some salt water would be better if you have the room.

If you are catching them out of season, or keeping more than a legal limit, I recommend putting them in a garbage bag and stuffing them down the front of your pants or bibs. Kidding of course. Ask Kaiser

Last weekend I let a batch sit around in a pot of cool salt water for a few hours before cooking and they were perfect.

I would be curious to know how they freeze? I haven't been fortunate enough to have so many that couldn't be eaten in a sitting or two when fresh. How should you take care of them and freeze them if you are lucky enough to have a shrimp cup that overfloweth?

PS - nice work on that first load and sorry about the pot! Major bummer. Any lings?

Forrest Gump doesn't know jack about our kind of shrimp.

Several reasons for losing a pot. Not enough weight. Too close to ledge and the current carried it carried it over, or line was not weighted down and it got cut by an angry boater.

Double up on the big buoys. Make sure you use a halibut clip with hefty sinker on your line if you don't use the leaded line. Scan the whole area to see where drop offs are.

One you have shrimp, you have 2 options. If you want to keep heads on, put them on ice with no standing water and they will live quite a while. If you want headless, clean ASAP before they die, then ice. If you don't, the quality goes down rapidly.

Saute in garlic and olive oil and seasonings with shell on, peel while eating
Deep fry with shell on in turkey fryer for big crowds. YUM!
Marinate in lemon juice/olive oil and seasonings, skewer and BBQ
Peel them, batter and deep fry.
Boil 3 minutes, shell and dip in garlic butter. (traditional method)

Cover shrimp with water in a freezer container. A little salt added is fine.

I used to work at a seafood shop in downtown Olympia and we'd usually get a BUNCH of prawns whenever the season opened. Whoever the owners ordered them from brought them to us the day after they caught them in a big tub, that was in a clean trash can full of ice. We cleaned them right away and kept em on ice, they stayed in great condition for the day or two it took us to sell them. I've got to get out and catch some of them next year, those things are so damn good...Later


Jake

Thanks for the advice! Pound for pound I put them above crab, ling, and halibut for the tastiest morsels we have available around here.

Ike

Try this recipe:

Chop up some garlic and ginger and mix with Panko. coat shrimp in flour and then in eggs and then in the panko mixture and then deep Fry at 350 deg for just a couple of min. do not over cook. Best shrimp I have ever eaten.

+1