By Zeb Hargett

The small community of Bon Secour has seen generational changes throughout its history, especially regarding the rich bounty of seafood harvested, processed, and shipped to restaurants and consumers, first locally, then regionally, and now nationally. 

The one constant has been Bon Secour Fisheries, owned and operated by the Nelson family, a fourth-generation seafood processing company located on the Bon Secour River. I sat down with Chris Nelson, a family member, who with older brothers, John Andrew, and David, worked closely with their father, John Ray Nelson, and mother Jane. John Ray was very active in the business until Jane’s health failed in 2004. 

The Nelson Family has seen many changes throughout its 130+ year history in the seafood business.  From the days when shrimp boats only trawled the local bays in the summer, to discovering an abundant shrimp resource offshore in the Gulf of Mexico that allowed shrimpers to harvest most of the year, the industry has changed quite a bit, and our conversation wandered as we reminisced about growing up in Baldwin County.

As I waited to meet with Chris at their offices, I studied the photos on the wall of schooners that served as oyster boats, large bins with family members sorting and deheading shrimp, and piles of oysters being shucked and packed for restaurants near and far. Technology has certainly impacted the seafood industry, in a good way, I might add. 

Part of my mission was to debunk some popular opinions about what is served as “Fresh Gulf Seafood,” the labeling of seafood we consume regularly, and to get Chris’s thoughts on what can be done to ensure consistent supply and encourage more demand for local seafood. 

We started our conversation by discussing our friend, Jimbo Meador, who was the plant manager of Bon Secour Fisheries for many years. Jimbo started work at Bon Secour in the early 1970’s. Chris worked there during the summer and on most weekends through grade school and high school and in the summer during college.  Scenic 98 Coastal published a two-part series (That’s All I Have to Say About That…) and (A Life Well Lived) on Jimbo, who was the subject of the book by Winston Groom called Forrest Gump.

“Jimbo is a hard person not to really like and appreciate,” says Chris. “One day, soon after I had finished my schooling and had come to work full time, Jimbo said to me in his Spring Hill/ Point Clear drawl, “Chris, my friend wrote a book about an idiot who worked at a shrimp plant [long pause]…, and he dedicated it to me. [Another long pause]  “How do you think I should feel about that?”  Chris says, “Jimbo’s deliberate and measured way of speaking often served to camouflage his high degree of intelligence.”  But he knew Jimbo was semi-joking with him and they shared a good laugh. 

Chris told me that there was a covered parking area where his older brothers and Jimbo would park near the Post Office and old Meme’s Restaurant (known throughout the area for the best fresh seafood around.) “When I returned from college that summer, Jimbo said, “You park here,” and gave Chris his parking spot. He is the least entitled person I’ve ever known.” 

Jimbo and Chris’ older brother, John Andrew, decided that Chris should be responsible for arranging the order for the boats to be unloaded at the dock. “Each captain wants to be unloaded first, but they have to be coordinated. Boat captains don’t like to be told what to do. In addition, now that the boat was no longer in the Gulf but at the dock, alcohol was often involved in the situation. It was my job to keep the process orderly. If they weren’t on the boat when their turn came, they would lose their turn and go to the end of the line. It was my lesson in diplomacy.”

Chris attended college at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, just like his brothers before him. An Episcopal school, their local minister attended seminary there, and paved the way for the Nelson boys. John Andrew and David earned economics degrees while Chris received his degree in biology. 

“We had a strong public school at Foley. I had great teachers, especially in physics and chemistry. I have always enjoyed science, and I’m fascinated by how things work in the living world.” Chris admits he was getting a bit burned out in his Junior year at Sewanee when one of his professors suggested he attend a semester at Duke University Marine Lab on the coast of North Carolina at Pivers Island. He jumped at the chance.

“My college advisor was a marine biologist. The Duke Marine Lab on the Outer Banks gave me the kick I needed. The instructors there had a way of teaching that made it interesting. One professor stopped mid-sentence, pointed to the class, and said, “You know, the ocean is interesting,” as if some aspect of his point had just gained a new appreciation. “I determined I wanted to study living organisms and earned my undergraduate degree in biology.”

From there, Chris studied Marine Environmental Sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island. He tells me it was a bit of a culture shock for a kid from Bon Secour. “Ten percent of the population of the United States lived within a 200-mile radius.

The Marine Science Research Center at Stony Brook offered a graduate program that focused on four classical marine sciences. Biological Oceanography, (Sea life), Physical Oceanography (Tides and Currents), Chemical Oceanography (Ocean Chemistry), and Geological Oceanography (Beach Dynamics). 

After graduate school, Chris took a fellowship with the Sea Grant System (NOAA)  in Washington D.C. There, he did an internship with Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. “Because Alaska’s fisheries are so important, he was one of the few elected representatives in Washington with a vested interest in the commercial seafood industry. I was exposed at a high level and saw how the system worked in DC.”

Our conversation turned to the heritage of Baldwin County. We talked about the pockets of immigrants with communities of Italian, Greek, German, and Polish descent. Nielsen, the  Danish name, was changed to Nelson at immigration. Chris’s great-grandfathers on both sides of his father’s family were associated with producing and selling oysters.

“Growing up, I appreciated the fact that farming and fishing had kept the county going for over 150 years. Potatoes were harvested in late spring so school started before Labor Day to allow for letting out early in the spring. His wife’s maiden name is Jurkiewicz from Poland and they were potato farmers. Familiar names like Steiner and Plash are all relatives. “There were two to three dozen old German families in south Baldwin County, many lived around Elberta.”

We talked about the changes in the seafood industry. Chris points out that the Bon Secour River is really a tidal bayou. “I remember talking to Daddy about the sea turtle excluder regulation implemented to save them from being caught in shrimp nets. The new regulations were difficult to accept and to live with.” 

He tells me that shrimping expanded in the late 1950s with the discovery of offshore shrimp fisheries. This led to bigger vessels and an influx of capital to build new boats to meet demand. “You could almost catch shrimp all year: Pink shrimp in the Keys in early Spring, Brown shrimp in Louisiana in Summer, and White shrimp in the north Gulf of Mexico in early Fall.”

The industry was capitalized by private investment as bankers, lawyers, and potato farmers invested in shrimp boats in the 60s and 70s. The oil embargo took its toll as fuel prices doubled. Then imported shrimp drove prices down to where it was hard to make a living as a shrimper. This is still happening today.

“There is no easy fix,” he says. “Imported shrimp make up 90% of the supply of shrimp nationwide.  Even here locally, it is difficult to find true Gulf shrimp being served.  If you limit yourself to just domestic caught seafood from the Gulf, you’d have trouble getting enough product. There is just not enough supply to meet demand.” 

He says that modern fisheries management methods and catch limits have made commercial reef fish (Grouper, Snapper) sustainable. We discussed Catch Share licensing. “For those who own catch shares, they can “lease” their quota and never leave the dock. I don’t have an issue with that. Catch shares works.” 

He points out that recreational fishermen need to understand why limitations from season to season are in place. “I think they often take a very short view regarding how many fish you can harvest in a season. We’ve had a good run recently with fish numbers like Red Snapper, but Mother Nature can work against you very quickly. The longer you have a good run, the harder it is to sustain.”

“Most recreational fisheries are open access, which means open to anyone willing to purchase a fishing license.  As more people fish, there is more pressure on the fish stocks.  More and more people are fishing these days and there will come a time when the stocks will not be able to support all the pressure, like falling off a cliff. Looking back, strictly regarding fish management, you can overfish what is available and sustainable. There is simply not enough seafood in the Gulf of Mexico waters to meet the U.S. demand. This makes imports an unfortunate necessity.”

We shifted gears and discussed the company. “When my father returned from WWII, the shrimp industry began to explode. Shrimp was an underdeveloped fishery. It quickly became over-capitalized with more and more production platforms slicing up the pie until the economic return began to dwindle.”

During a bumper crop year, Chris explains, money was made on volume, not price. Imports changed the economics of the seafood industry. Prices went down and made it difficult to make a living, especially if the local catch happened to be poor that year.  Before imports, the poor supply would support higher prices and compensate for the poor catch. 

By the late 1990s, the government implemented a countervailing anti-dumping duty tax to offset losses. Byrd Money (after Sen. Robert Byrd) was paid directly to the industry.   This worked for a while but wasn’t used to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of domestic shrimping.  

We talked about technological advances and the emergence of aquaculture. “There have been few advances in harvesting shrimp with an otter trawl on the bottom of the seafloor. One which did emerge was the GPS plotter; however, we are basically using the same gear we’ve had for 40 years.”  

There have been some innovations but the most dramatic ones have been in response to environmental concerns over the impact of shrimp trawling on finfish and turtles.  

He says that technology has enabled the improvement of farm-raised shrimp, oysters, and some fish species with better feed conversion rates. 

Chris says these are highly available products being served in restaurants all over. He mentions shrimp from Vietnam, and India, and very high-quality shrimp from Ecuador raised in mangrove swamps that are fed naturally with the fluctuating tides. “The animal husbandry technology we have today is so advanced, and getting better, making it difficult for a wild-caught fishing industry to compete.

“There are virtually no natural oyster reefs on the east side of Mobile Bay and those on the west side are limited in scope. Farm-raised oysters are being produced on the east and west sides of the Bay and are of good quality.”  

We concluded our visit by discussing the recent publicity about mislabeled fish being served in local restaurants. “We distribute seafood from all over the world. We make sure it’s labeled correctly. We can’t control what restaurants say they are serving their customers, however, I believe most restaurants want to be transparent about what they are serving and struggle to contend with what is often a very dynamic supply chain involving both domestic and multiple import sources for many species.  

He goes on, “It is a particular challenge to consistently source freshly caught finfish from Gulf waters. It is just a reality in today’s market. Demand far exceeds the supply for Gulf seafood in general, and finfish in particular.  Many local finfish species such as redfish and speckled trout are reserved for recreational harvest exclusively and cannot be sold to consumers.”  

“One very unfortunate outcome of the quantity and widespread consumption of imported pond-raised shrimp is that many people do not know what a wild Gulf shrimp tastes like, nor do they appreciate the flavor.  I can tell you if you served a fresh brown shrimp from the Gulf on a plate many people would tell you it tasted funny because they weren’t used to it. Local folks who have grown up eating fresh shrimp can tell the difference and prefer that flavor, but many people who are visitors or newcomers cannot and do not like it.”

“There will likely come a time when freshly caught shrimp and fish are priced at a premium, like Angus beef, but you will pay much higher prices. US fisheries are managed for sustainability, which, by definition, results in a limited supply.

We also talked about bag limits for recreational anglers. “A bag limit of 10 fish means 20 filets.   The fish you don’t eat immediately or give to friends end up in the freezer anyway, often thrown away six months later. Bag limits are having a positive impact on all recreational fisheries. Everyone should want improved fisheries management, leading to sustainability for future generations.”

I enjoyed my visit with Chris. He was extremely generous with his time and forthright with his thoughts about managing and sustaining the seafood industry. He mentioned the high quality of the seafood products available. “The only way to provide for growing demand is through aquaculture- fish farming.  Wild fisheries have largely reached peak production.”

My takeaway was that with good fisheries management, advances in aquaculture, and truth in labeling, we should all be happy eating high-quality seafood well into the future. I still covet a freshly caught speckled trout right out of the Gulf served with Gouda Grits, and fresh summer vegetables, like tomato pie, cucumbers, and maybe a little blackberry cobbler thrown in. Yum!

Thank you, Chris. I hope to do this again soon. Perhaps over a cold beer, fresh-caught Gulf shrimp, and a dozen raw Admiral Shellfish oysters at the Tin Top Restaurant next door, when it opens soon!