Shrimping West Texas
By Bart Reid
Texana / Science / Aquaculture
Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
Pages: 256
Publication Date: May 21, 2024
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** SYNOPSIS ***
When you think of a marine environment, what do you picture? Wetlands, possibly; coastal shores, perhaps. When you think of a shrimp farm, what do you picture? Some folks who know a thing or two about aquaculture might say any marine or freshwater environment will do.
Bart Reid, one of the founders of the Permian Sea Shrimp company, is here to tell you otherwise. Shrimping West Texas is the story of that business and the history of the harebrained notion that farming shrimp is possible in the West Texas desert.
Spanning twenty years of successes and failures, Reid captures the quintessential West Texas entrepreneurial spirit, tallies the unique environmental factors that made this possible, and depicts the motley crew of business folks, scientists, and schemers who were part of the tale.
*** CLICK TO PURCHASE ***
Texas Tech U Press | Amazon | Bart’s Bay Armor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** ABOUT THE AUTHOR ***
Bart Reid is a marine biologist with a master’s degree from Texas A&M. He has been in the aquaculture (fish farming) business for over 30 years. After many years of farming shrimp in west Texas he now farms algae for Omega 3 supplements and bioplastics. He also owns Bart’s Bay Armor, a fishing apparel and wading boot company based out of Port Mansfield, Texas, where he fishes on the Laguna Madre.
WEBSITE ◆ LINKEDIN AMAZON ◆ FACEBOOK ◆ GOODREADS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** REVIEW ***
Shrimping West Texas is a testament to the determination and hard work, that one man had for creating something he so firmly believed in. When he broached the idea of starting shrimp farms in the hot, dry, part of West Texas to banks and potential investors, they were skeptical. Shrimping is done on the coasts, right? Not in the middle of a near desert.
How he accomplished the goal of ultimately owning his own shrimp farm and being successful at it, is also a testament to knowing your strengths and weaknesses and making a plan to bolster the former and mitigate the latter in order to achieve success. Following his studies in Marine Biology, Reid went to Florida to work in the shrimping industry, learning all he could there about aquaculture, especially as related to raising shrimp. Then he moved to West Texas and worked for a couple of farms as a manager, honing his skills in all areas of running a farm from the building of the ponds to the final harvest, as well as the “business” side of the whole endeavor.
In addition to being informative about every aspect of building and running a shrimp farm, there are many entertaining stories of the unique characters who lived in Imperial, TX. Some of the stories were laugh out loud funny, like the one about the most bizarre funeral the author ever attended. Pity that poor preacher who kept trying to keep the funeral serious and somber while family of the deceased were all in a party mood, drinking and hooting and hollering. When the dog fell into the grave, that was it for the preacher. He finally just quit trying to speak and signaled for the coffin to be lowered into the grave.
The rest of the narrative is conversational, reminding me of listening to the farmers talk at the diner in town when I lived in the country. Like those farmers, Reid touches on all aspects of farming, with wonderful anecdotes about the people who helped him at every stage of the game.
He’s also blunt about those who had closed minds and an unwillingness to embrace a new idea. “Being a pioneer sometimes has it’s glory if you can survive the arrows.”
I’ll be honest and admit I didn’t expect to enjoy the read as much as I did. I was like all those skeptics Reid encountered at first, but I am no longer a skeptic and wish the West Texas shrimp farms were still operating. I’d love to get my shrimp from a place that had the sweetest shrimp around.
Some of the details of building the ponds and the drainage systems were a bit more detailed than I needed to know, but the narrative quickly moved off those details to more interesting accounts of what farming entailed, such as the harvests. Since shrimping is done differently in aquaculture than from coastal waters, getting them from pond to market is more complicated than dumping nets of shrimp into refrigerated holds in boats. The process on the Permian Sea Shrimp Company farm was challenging, hard work, and yet fun, despite Reid’s disclaimer, “A shrimp harvest is just like a rock concert – hot, sweaty, and loud. If the band is well prepared, it’s a joyous occasion with hearts a glee, but if the band is having a bad night, then it is just a bunch of noise with mad, smelly, people who all wish they were somewhere else.”
The icing on the cake for me are the recipes at the end. There were several signature dishes served at The Shrimp Store, a restaurant/store that the couple ran during the hey-day years of the Permian Sea Shrimp farm, and they all, of course, had shrimp as a main ingredient. Those dishes all sound terrific, and I can’t wait to ask my son to make the poblano peppers stuffed with shrimp, bacon, and cheddar cheese.
If you’ve always wanted to know what a West Texas shrimp farm can look like – or even if you are like me and really didn’t know what you were missing – I urge you to grab a copy of this fascinating and entertaining book. It not only gives you great information about the shrimping industry, there are pictures of life in rural West Texas that are spot on, and characters that are hard to forget.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CLICK TO VISIT THE LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE TOUR PAGE
FOR DIRECT LINKS TO EACH BLOG PARTICIPATING IN THIS TOUR.
blog tour services provided by
