Mount Pleasant Magazine 6.4

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sea was too rough to bring it in, but the captain said they
would retrieve it sometime soon.
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Wayne Magwood grew up on his dad’s boat. Now 63,
he was just 4 when he started shrimping with Clarence
A. Magwood Jr., better known as “Junior” or “Captain”
to those who lived in Mount Pleasant long before Shem
Creek was lined with restaurants and expensive homes.
The younger Magwood bought his first boat in 1976 and
named it “Scottie and Sherryl,” after his brother and sister.
Ten years later, he purchased “Winds of Fortune.”
At one time, the captain said, he and his relatives
owned seven shrimp boats and a seafood business on Shem
Creek, but today, only
“Fortune” remains in
Magwood hands. He
admitted that shrimp-
ing, one of the most
dangerous professions,
has taken its toll on his
health and well-being,
but he added that he
has no regrets about
the path he chose for
his life.
“It’s in my blood. I
just enjoy the outdoors
and the salt air and
being my own boss,”
he said. “But this boat
is getting old and I’m
getting old. It’s time for me to take it easy. I can’t go like I
used to. My mind says go, but my body says no.”
Magwood still plies his trade virtually every day of the
week, except when winds of 30 mph or more convince
him to stay home. In the past, he has traveled as far away
as Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Norfolk, Virginia, in
search of shrimp. On his best excursion ever, he said, he
hauled in 10,000 pounds of shrimp in a single day. That
was 20 years ago, when one of his crew, Vinnie Vierra –
who is also his stepson and still earns his living on “Winds
of Fortune” – thought he made so much money that he no
longer needed a steady job.
“He made $4,000 in one day and quit,” Magwood
remembered. “Two weeks later, he wanted his job back.”
Vierra is still part of Magwood’s crew today, as is Oliver
“Gil” Young, but much has changed since the shrimping
industry’s heyday on Shem Creek. The captain said a de-
cent haul now is 500 pounds a day, and with competition
from farm-grown and foreign shrimp, he can sell his catch
for only about half of what he got back in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, fuel costs are much higher than they once
were, government regulations are stricter and, even worse,
bad luck apparently is following Magwood around this
year. His boat’s propeller suffered damage after striking
an object in the water, and during a trip to test his nets
before the start of the season – which generally runs from
around May 1 to around Dec. 31 – his engine cracked a
head. He was hit with a $12,000 repair bill and missed the
2016 Blessing of the Fleet and the first two weeks of the
shrimping season. Then there was the snapped cable and
the temporary loss of his net.
Life on the water was much more profitable when
Magwood purchased “Winds of Fortune” for $160,000
in 1986.
“I had $100,000
in the bank. I bor-
rowed $60,000 and
paid it off in three
years,” he remem-
bered. “I’ve been
broke ever since.”
The world has
changed in other
major ways for the
Shem Creek fishing
industry. For one,
Magwood pointed
out that the creek
once served as home
base for 70 or more
boats, a number that
has dwindled to barely a dozen today. And back in the
1980s and 1990s, trucks were waiting on the docks to
transport shrimp to processing houses. Today, Magwood
moves much of his catch through social media. When he
has shrimp to sell, the word goes out on the Team Mag-
wood Facebook page.
“A truck would pick up the shrimp for processors in
Alabama and Mississippi, head them, pack them, freeze
them, box them up and sell them back to grocery stores
in the Lowcountry,” Magwood said. “Now everyone is on
their own to sell their shrimp.”
Though life as a shrimper has grown a little less bear-
able since Magwood captained his first boat at the age of
16, he does have fond memories and good stories to tell
about his time in the business. For instance, he likes to
talk about Oliver Young’s little brother. Clarence Maurice
“Reesie” Young was only 12 when they lost their father to
a shrimping accident. He persevered, however, and became
Wayne Magwood prepares to put a net in the water. It wasn’t long before a cable
snapped, sending the net to the ocean floor.