"MenhadenBait" news and stories

Photo: huggingthecoast.com food blog/Flickr

Shrimp baiting may be nasty and expensive, but for the shrimp festival in Yemassee, S.C., it's cause for celebration.

Crowds will converge upon the low-country town this weekend to feast on shrimp gumbo, meet Miss Yemassee and pay tribute to shrimp baiting. But even Lori Poston, who's chairing the 16th annual festival, cops to being slightly ambivalent about the peculiar regional practice of using a mix of clay and fish meal to lure thousands of wriggling shrimp.

"It stinks to high heaven," Poston says of the traditional bait. "It's the stinkingest thing you ever smelled. When my husband comes back from shrimp baiting, he takes his clothes off at the door."

Shrimp caught using bait don't return in much better shape than the shrimpers, she adds.

"The vein's the main thing," Poston says. "The meal gets into the shrimp and you have to clean the veins. It's nice when you can just free cast without bait."