BRUNSWICK, Ga. - Georgia waters will open for commercial and recreational harvest of food shrimp on June 10, Georgia's Division of Natural Resources Commissioner Mark Williams has announced Tuesday.

At 8 a.m. that morning commercial food shrimp trawlers can operate in Georgia’s territorial waters open to power-drawn trawls. Commercial and recreational cast netters, as well as persons using a beach seine, can harvest food shrimp from waters open to the use of these gears.

“The abundance of white shrimp in our most recent coast-wide trawl survey is comparable to historic averages for the month of May,” said Jim Page, the Coastal Resources Division biologist supervising monthly shrimp sampling. “The majority of the shrimp are large enough to be desirable to recreational harvesters and valuable to commercial fishermen. Though abundance and count size is similar to previous years, it appears the spawning period for shrimp was slightly delayed this year as a result of cooler than normal water temperatures. However, after taking into consideration our survey results and input from our Shrimp Advisory Panel, we recommended opening on June 10.”

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