Seafood Foraging on Sapelo Island

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Wilderness Southeast's Ted Wesemann makes casting a shrimp net look easier than it actually is.
Wilderness Southeast's Ted Wesemann makes casting a shrimp net look easier than it actually is.
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Participants in the
Participants in the "Incredible Edible Seafood-Foraging Feast" walk through a part of Sapelo Island unspoiled by inhabitants or visitors.
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Seining requires a cooperative effort.
Seining requires a cooperative effort.
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Private ownership and environmental concern have managed to preserve a large portion of the Georgia coastal islands from development.
Private ownership and environmental concern have managed to preserve a large portion of the Georgia coastal islands from development.
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Mussels steamed in wine or beer will please the most discriminating seafood gourmet
Mussels steamed in wine or beer will please the most discriminating seafood gourmet

Like almost half of the American population, I grew up within an hour’s drive of the seacoast. Weekends and summer holidays often found me on one of Georgia’s tidal rivers, dangling my sunburned legs off an old wooden dock while fishing for chan­nel bass, mullet and bony catfish–or crab­bing with a piece of twine tied to a chicken neck. Even as a small child, I was an expert at casting a heavily weighted net into those briny waters to proudly provide family and friends with the makings for a huge shrimp dinner.

Much of my adult life, however, was spent in Manhattan, where my sea-born meals came from the Fulton Fish Market, and in San Francisco, where seafood cravings were usually satisfied by a cable-car ride to Fisher­man’s Wharf. Then, over a decade ago, I moved to the lush mountains of western North Carolina with a bass-filled lake front­ing my house and a trout-rich branch of the French Broad River just across the road. Since I prefer my piscatory dishes straight from the water, I gradually learned to sub­stitute freshwater fish for the seafood fare of my youth.

Then I discovered Wilderness South­east, a nonprofit educa­tional corporation that specializes in taking people on nature outings in such unspoiled environments as the Great Smoky Moun­tains, the Everglades, the Okefenokee Swamp and even as far afield as Belize and Costa Rica. This group conducts a four-day “Incredible Edible Seafood-Foraging Feast” on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, and I jumped at the chance to revisit this coastline of my childhood and brush up on my almost-­forgotten seafood-foraging skills.

Sapelo Island History

Unlike its neighbors, South Carolina to the north and Florida to the south, Georgia has managed to preserve a large portion of its coast from development. This has been pos­sible, in part, because the majority of the state’s 15 largest and most beautiful barrier islands were (four still are) private preserves owned by wealthy families or small groups of people. Today, thanks to the efforts of conservationists, only four of the 15–Tybee, Sea Island, St. Simons and Jekyll–have been developed, and one of these, Jekyll, is a state park. The federal government owns four undeveloped islands (Wassaw, Blackbeard, Wolf and Cumberland), and the state owns the other three (Williamson, Ossabaw and Sapelo).

  • Published on Sep 1, 1989
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