On the last day of the shrimping season, the Billie Joe puttered into the Bundy’s Seafood dock in Lafitte and off stepped Larry Alexie wearing a camouflage jacket and waders.
The lifelong shrimper watched closely as the dividends of his three days on the water were vacuumed onto a conveyor belt, weighed and sorted into bins with ice. A handful of hopeful pelicans, drawn to the pungent smell of 12,000 pounds of shrimp, floated nearby.
Despite a season so bountiful producers have had a hard time keeping up with cleaning and peeling, rock-bottom dockside prices have made it difficult for shrimpers to make ends meet.
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