But I think more than anything else, it's just a tradition, part of the way we always lived. And I think a lot of that is going away. It's already gone. To those who know it well, the pace of change in Louisiana's coastal wetlands the last two decades has been staggering, physically and culturally. While coastal erosion has ravaged the habitat, eating 35 square miles of marsh a year, local sporting traditions seem to be disappearing at the same rapid rate.
Few people live that life anymore.
They got to get back home. Few traditions have faded as quickly as sport trawling. Fishers talked as often about their favorite trawls and boards as they did rods and reels. And in a land where fishing season never closes, the annual spring shrimp opening in May was a major event on the coast. Marinas in fishing communities such as Lafitte, Hopedale and Shell Beach braced for the day by adding extra workers, bringing in extra ice, praying for good weather and cool heads.