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This story is co-published with Outer Banks Insider.
In brown shrimp season, the fish house has its own rhythm.
On a bright July day, a boat slowly churned toward the ditch near a fish house in Swan Quarter, a quiet village in Hyde County. Six dock workers readied a massive cardboard container that can hold 1,200 pounds of shrimp, shoveling ice into the bottom, and hosed down the dock.
As soon as the boat pulled in, workers began moving 50-pound purple baskets of shrimp to the dock, hosing them off and setting them in the shade of the covered fish house as they drained.
Newman Seafood Inc. owner Dell Newman scanned the cargo and weighed samples on a hanging metal scale. His older brother, Eddie Newman, and two crewmembers brought in nearly 4,000 pounds of shrimp from two days out on the Granny Gwen II, a 50-foot boat named for Eddie’s wife.
Dell Newman said the buyer in Oriental, whose truck would be arriving shortly, would process and freeze this load. When the catch is bigger, he sells the shrimp fresh after a staff of “headers” remove the shrimp heads on-site at large tables. He sells up and down the coast, directly to some restaurants on Hatteras Island but mostly to middlemen distributors. He estimates 75 percent of his catch stays in state.
His father started the fish house in the late 1980s, but his family has been fishing much longer. “I reckon we go back three or four generations on mama’s side, two or three on daddy’s side,” he said.
Raleigh is a long way away from Swan Quarter, in both distance and culture. But just a few weeks ago, Dell Newman and a busload of family and community members made the trek to protest legislation that they said would destroy their livelihoods. Last-minute changes made to legislation in the state Senate in June would have banned all shrimp trawling in the state’s inshore waters and within a half-mile of the shoreline for four years.
“See all these guys on this dock? They’re gone,” he said. “I’m gone.”
Others in the industry, which despite economic headwinds landed 7.7 million pounds of shrimp valued at over $14.8 million last year, and even local elected officials were taken aback. The backlash was swift and effective.
After a hastily organized lobbying campaign from shrimpers and their allies, the legislature put the trawling ban on ice—for now. But the dust-up stirred longstanding tensions between commercial and recreational fishermen and fueled frustrations with how Senate leaders handled the whole affair that haven’t yet faded.
“I understand you intend to revisit this issue and pursue a ban on shrimp trawling in the future,” wrote Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard in a June 30 letter to Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, a fellow Republican. “If that is the case, I respectfully ask that you do so with transparency, fairness and a willingness to hear all voices—especially those directly impacted.”
The Bill’s Hard Turn
The whole brouhaha started with House Bill 442, which passed the state House in May and would have opened multimonth flounder and red snapper recreational fishing seasons for a four-year pilot program. Rep. Frank Iler, a Brunswick County Republican, introduced the legislation and criticized the way the state manages its fisheries, saying commercial fishermen have too much sway.
But the bill underwent a drastic change in the Senate Agriculture, Energy, and Environment Committee on June 17, the day before it was scheduled for a floor vote.
Sen. David Craven, a Republican from Randolph County, added the trawling amendment. WUNC reported that when he proposed it, he cited a statistic—which environmental groups regularly share and fishermen dispute—that for every pound of shrimp harvested, four pounds of other species are caught and discarded. The change cleared both that committee and the rules committee the same day.
Rep. Ed Goodwin, another Republican from the coastal region, was one of three sponsors of the original legislation. “We had a great bill,” Goodwin posted on social media the next day, decrying the move to add “this anti-trawling amendment at the 11th hour.”
The amendment would “effectively eliminate the shrimping industry and put thousands of hard-working North Carolinians out of work,” Goodwin wrote.
Craven didn’t respond to requests for comment, and he hasn’t said anything else publicly about why he introduced the amendment.
But Sen. Bobby Hanig, a Currituck County Republican who represents 10 northeastern counties and was the amendment’s fiercest critic in the Senate, attributed the change to “Senate leadership”—specifically Berger and Sen. Bill Rabon, a Brunswick County Republican who chairs the Senate rules committee.
“You know as well as I do that you don’t scrape a pimple off a gnat’s ass without Bill Rabon and Phil Berger’s permission in the North Carolina Senate,” Hanig told The Assembly recently.
Hanig repeatedly blamed the Coastal Conservation Association North Carolina (CCA NC), a group of conservationists and recreational anglers, and the North Carolina Wildlife Federation for the proposed ban, accusing them of undertaking a “full-on assault against the commercial fisherman for years” in remarks on the Senate floor.
The latter submitted petitions for rulemaking to the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission, a governor-appointed board working under the Department of Environmental Quality and charged with overseeing the state’s marine and estuarine resources, in 2016 and in 2019 to severely restrict shrimp trawling, both of which were denied.
“Their overarching agenda is to get all commercial fishing out of the sounds in North Carolina, without question,” Hanig said in an interview. “The shrimp trawl ban was just the beginning, like an opening salvo, if you would.”
North Carolina Wildlife Federation CEO Tim Gestwicki said his group wasn’t behind the amendment, though both conservation organizations backed it publicly.
“We have no problem with trawling, just not destructive bottom trawling in the juvenile fish nursery areas,” said Gestwicki.
“It’s not our language,” Gestwicki said of the amendment. “But we absolutely support any and all efforts to stop killing hundreds of millions of juvenile fish in the juvenile fish nursery areas before they have a chance to spawn.”
“Their overarching agenda is to get all commercial fishing out of the sounds in North Carolina, without question. The shrimp trawl ban was just the beginning, like an opening salvo, if you would.”
Sen. Bobby Hanig
A spokesperson for Berger said that there were “no responsive public records” in response to a request for communication between Berger and CCA NC, the N.C. Wildlife Federation, or any of their 10 publicly listed lobbyists between May 1 and July 1 of this year (although lawmakers now have broad purview to avoid such requests). Berger and Rabon did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
Rabon in particular faced heated backlash back in his district. The State Bureau of Investigation arrested Anthony Street, 44, one of his constituents and a Brunswick Soil and Water Conservation District board member, on June 20 for communicating threats to a legislative agent, WECT reported. Street, they alleged, threatened Rabon in a Facebook post where he stated that what happened to the two Minnesota lawmakers who were shot inside their homes on June 14 “can happen here in North Carolina.”
Bill Dead–for Now
Glenn Skinner, executive director of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, a trade group that represents commercial fishermen, said he first received a copy of the amended bill from Republican Sen. Norm Sanderson of Pamlico County. He quickly began making calls to others in the commercial fishing industry.
A flurry of resolutions and letters and a mobilization to Raleigh ensued. Skinner estimated that 70 fishermen and supporters showed up for the June 18 Senate vote.
“It was a big grassroots effort,” Skinner said. “It was encouraging to see that many people come together that quick.”
Hanig made six attempts to remove the shrimp trawling provision, but each amendment was tabled, and his motion failed, as Outer Banks Insider previously reported.
In the end, only Republican Sens. Michael Lazzara of Onslow County and Bob Brinson of Craven County joined Hanig and Sanderson in the 41-4 vote.
At a press conference a few days later, Iler, the bill’s first primary sponsor and Rabon’s counterpart in the House, encouraged colleagues to vote against a bill he said had been “hijacked.”
“It’s not our language. But we absolutely support any and all efforts to stop killing hundreds of millions of juvenile fish in the juvenile fish nursery areas before they have a chance to spawn.”
Tim Gestwicki, North Carolina Wildlife Federation CEO
Other speakers, including industry experts and a scientist formerly employed by the state, pushed back on claims made in support of the change. “There is no evidence that a wholesale ban on inshore trawling will improve fish stocks,” said Barbara “Dee” Y. Lupton, a marine biologist and retired Division of Marine Fisheries deputy director.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat from Guilford County who often sides with environmentalists, said at the press conference that the proposal should be seen as an “allocation issue,” not an environmental one. “If we were focused on the environment and its impact on the sustainability of the fish, we’d be talking about water quality, we’d be talking about coastal development, we’d be talking about protecting our wetlands, restoring our buffers, instead of going in the opposite direction,” she said.
Republican Rep. Keith Kidwell, who represents Beaufort, Hyde, Pamlico and part of Dare counties, noted that for Harrison and him to be on the same side of an issue, “it has to be wrong; that takes a miracle right there, folks.”
After the bill went back to the House, coastal organizing had kicked up a notch. Skinner said he and other industry representatives met to “hatch a plan.” That included lining up a caravan—mostly box trucks and some 18-wheelers—to circle the State Legislative Building before the House was supposed to take up the matter, intermittently blowing their horns.
“I think we had 25 altogether,” Skinner said. “We could have had more, but there was a limit to where we would start blocking traffic.”
They also brought 500 people opposing the proposed ban from the coast to Raleigh, waving signs and wearing white T-shirts with the red “no” symbol over the word “Shrimpgate” on the front and “NC seafood for all/No trawl ban” on the back. The issue had sparked serious concern in coastal communities and was the subject of ongoing conversations and local media coverage.
The effort proved successful. The House referred the bill to its rules committee on June 25 without taking a vote. While Berger voiced continued support for the bill, it was effectively “dead in the water,” as WRAL put it.
“It’s our belief that continuing to allow trawling in the inland waters is detrimental to the state overall, detrimental to our aquatic fish populations,” Berger told WRAL. “Again, we’re the only state on the East Coast or the Gulf Coast that allows that kind of net fishing in the inland waters, and it’s time for us to change that.”
Questions of Bycatch
While conservation groups often cite similar claims in their opposition to trawling, South Carolina does allow it in two bays from September to mid-December, and Louisiana also permits trawling in multiple inshore waters starting in August. Virginia, which only recently has begun to see harvestable shrimp populations as waters have warmed, issued its first experimental permits in 2017. It is still developing its fishery.
Three days after the bill was shelved, CCA NC posted a statement saying that it was “disappointed” that the House “appears to have failed to recognize its trustee duties to the people, instead giving in to the special interests of some 270 shrimpers who would seek to have their financial interests put ahead of the overall public good.”
For Dell Newman, the suggestion that shrimpers are “killing everything” is a misrepresentation of his industry.
“We’ve got a group of people in the middle of this thing that has tried to pit the rec guys and the commercial guys against each other,” he said. “And in actuality, we’ve got a lot more in common than we do apart.”
But CCA NC and commercial fishermen have been at odds for years over fisheries management. The conservation group filed a federal lawsuit in November 2020 alleging that the state has failed to properly manage public resources, including by allowing the “destructive practices” of trawling in estuarine waters and unattended gill nets, which it says have led to declines of various fish species. The lawsuit contends that the state has allowed the commercial fishing industry to “overharvest or waste” fish, leading to stunted recreational access by the citizens of the state of what is a public trust resource that should be available to all.
“It is kind of interesting that the legislature got involved, after so many years of not being involved in fisheries management or fisheries reform,” CCA NC Executive Director David Sneed said in an interview. “So it is encouraging that there is some interest there.”
The trial for that suit, previously slated for April, has been rescheduled for January 2026, Sneed said.
Separately, the North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group brought a federal lawsuit in 2020 against seven trawl companies and the Division of Marine Fisheries alleging they violated the federal Clean Water Act by discarding bycatch overboard and by their stirring up of sediment from nets dragging the bottom, which it equated with dredging. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2023 because neither unwanted fish nor sediment were deemed pollutants, nor were they added to the environment.
“We’ve got a group of people in the middle of this thing that has tried to pit the rec guys and the commercial guys against each other. And in actuality, we’ve got a lot more in common than we do apart.”
Dell Newman, commercial fisherman
Louis Daniel, who served as Division of Marine Fisheries director for nine years, has worked as a contract science adviser for the North Carolina Wildlife Federation since 2017 and is an expert witness in the CCA NC’s lawsuit. Daniel said the state has often seemed to make fisheries management decisions that favor short-term economics.
“If we continue to make our management decisions based on social economics and not the science … I think we’re just gonna continue to see more bad blood,” Daniel said.
When Daniel was still the Division of Marine Fisheries director in 2012, he stressed in a letter that the biological effects of bycatch are largely unknown. The majority of finfish taken as bycatch from shrimp trawling are juveniles, he said. And the decline in weakfish, spot, and croakers is a coastwide phenomenon, not specific to North Carolina. He also pointed out the state has more estuarine water than its neighbors combined—over 2.2 million acres, compared with Virginia’s less than 1 million and South Carolina’s nearly 170,000.
Around 45 percent of those acres in North Carolina are already closed to shrimp trawling, with additional “special secondary nurseries” opened or closed by proclamation based on shrimp size and count. The Albemarle and Currituck sounds have been closed to shrimp trawling for decades.
But in his 2024 expert witness report for the lawsuit, he traced the fisheries’ struggles to trawlers, and he believes the total number of fish killed per pound of shrimp harvested is actually much higher than the oft-cited 4:1 ratio, marking a shift in his opinion from a dozen years before.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission cited that same ratio in a June 22 email to license holders, which struck some as a state agency appearing to take a side in the political debate.
“There is no magic bullet that will restore depleted fisheries overnight, but reducing the impact shrimp trawling has on the habitats that juvenile fish depend upon and limiting bycatch of those fish will make a difference,” the email said, and encouraged people to contact their legislators.
(A commission spokesperson said it “routinely” provides information on legislation.)
Daniel said in a recent interview that there have not been any recent bycatch studies, and the most accurate way to conduct one would be to use a catch-per-unit-effort method, which would require “millions of dollars a year to collect the data.”
Lupton, the former Division of Marine Fisheries deputy director, agreed that bycatch data is old and includes areas outside the state. But she believes the 4:1 stat is likely an overestimate that doesn’t apply to inshore fisheries and doesn’t consider geographical seasonality or current management requirements.
In many aspects of its fisheries management, North Carolina has been an industry leader. In 1992, it became the first state to require bycatch reduction devices for shrimp trawls. Two years later, the General Assembly mandated detailed reporting of landings from each commercial fishing trip for all state-licensed fish dealers.
“In fact, many other states have modeled their trip ticket systems after the North Carolina program,” boasts the website for the state Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees the Division of Marine Fisheries.
The state’s Fisheries Reform Act of 1997 required the adoption of management plans to ensure long-term viability. The state currently has 13 plans, each for a different fishery, plus provides input into 21 interjurisdictional plans.
“No other East or Gulf coast state manages all commercially or recreationally significant fisheries based on such a data-based, science-driven process that is inclusive of all stakeholders,” Lupton wrote in a June 22 letter to lawmakers.
In February 2015, the Marine Fisheries Commission also adopted an amendment to the Shrimp Fisheries Management Plan that requires two certified bycatch reduction devices in shrimp trawls, in addition to turtle excluder devices.
Shrimper Vernon Sadler has a large, round metal turtle excluder in each of his four nets—he calls them “turtle shooters”—and two pyramid-shaped metal fish excluders in each net that he calls “fish eyes.”
“Just about everybody just pulls two big ones ’cuz it just gets rid of more fish,” Sadler said of the fish eyes. “We don’t want to catch fish.”
When the House vote was looming, he and Dell Newman posted videos on Facebook to counteract what they saw as misinformation, explaining how the excluders work. While their shrimp nets will always catch some fish, Sadler said the amount has been drastically reduced.
“Twenty-five years ago, I’d say, yeah, we probably killed a lot of fish,” Sadler said after docking his boat at the fish house. “But now, it’s entirely different. … We don’t catch a tenth of the fish we used to catch.”
‘The Most Worried I’d Ever Been’
While this was not the first attempt to restrict shrimp trawling, fishermen said it seemed the closest to being enacted.
“That’s as close as I ever seen it—it’s the most worried I’d ever been about it,” said Sadler, 57, who has been a commercial fisherman since age 16.
“It woulda took my livelihood out,” said Eddie Newman, 63, who began fishing full-time after high school. “We got a three-month season coming up for shrimp. Half our living comes out of that—or more.”
The Pamlico Sound’s brown shrimp season lasts from July through September, and white shrimp—also called greentail—season begins in mid-September in the sound, then runs December 1 through January 31 in the ocean.
“From December to February, you got 60 days,” Sadler said. “I’ll be lucky if I can get 15 days I can work just because of the weather.”
The industry fleet numbers are on the decline, although shrimp remains the second-most valuable fishery in the state. In 2023, 270 vessels took 3,666 shrimping trips in North Carolina. In 2014, state data shows 418 vessels took 6,478 trips.
Fishermen said they can’t realistically catch brown shrimp out in the ocean. When the shrimp go out to sea, Eddie Newman said, “They disappear; they just put a vanishing act on.”
Those shrimp are “coveted,” John Mallette, co-owner of Southern Breeze Seafood in Jacksonville, said in the press conference. “People come ask for North Carolina shrimp specifically because of the quality of what we have with our brown shrimp fishery in the summer, which comes out of Pamlico Sound.”
Sadler took two days off work to lobby in Raleigh. His boat, with two full-time employees, provides for a total of 10 family members. Lawmakers needed to know how many people a trawl ban would affect, he opined. “I ain’t a very good spokesperson,” he said, “but somebody had to go there and say something.”
The Newmans have a hard time naming more than one or two younger, up-and-coming local boat captains aside from Sadler’s son-in-law, who fishes full-time with him. They draw a parallel to family farms.
“At this juncture, people want security,” said Dell Newman.
Sadler said that members of the younger generation go away for school and don’t return. Between folks aging out and all the industry regulations, the area has already seen decline.
“In this one ditch, there used to be 50 or 60 boats at work, and now there’s six, and all of them sell to this fish house,” Sadler said.
Many coastal residents expect the trawling ban will resurface.
To this end, Woodard, the chair of the Dare County commissioners, created a 19-county North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition, which planned its inaugural meeting for this week.
“By coordinating our efforts, we can better advocate for the long-term health and sustainability of our fisheries, our local economies and our way of life,” Woodard wrote in his July 3 invitation letter to fellow coastal county leaders. He and other coastal elected officials were among the crowd in Raleigh pushing back on this bill.
For Sadler, the big showing in Raleigh over this bill was a positive signal.
“Crab potters and shrimpers have always had a love-hate relationship,” he noted. “This year is the first time I’ve ever seen them band together. … They know if they stop shrimping, crabbing’s next, gill netting’s next—it’s just a domino effect. So everybody went up there to support this.”
Corinne Saunders is the co-founder and editor of Outer Banks Insider, a community-supported news outlet focused on long-form investigative reporting on the area. She previously covered the region for Virginia’s largest regional newspaper.