By LIZ ROBBINS
c.2010 New York Times News Service
Gary Skinner did not expect much when the shrimping season opened a month late in Alabama’s Mobile Bay.
And he got even less.
His sons, Michael and Joe, took the family’s 75-foot trawler, the A.S. Skinner, out at 4 p.m. from Dauphin Island, Ala., on July 23 and returned with nearly empty nets at 10 p.m., long before sunrise, when they ordinarily would head back. Their nets dragged in only small brown shrimp along with the trash fish.