Man I really need to get into the shrimpin' business.
I lived in Monroe,(north)Louisiana on a shallow lake for 18 years while I was growing up and I used to dipnet these little grass shrimp out to bream-fish with. I also hatched out some hooded merganser's one summer that were very finicky eaters, but loved the grass shrimp that I netted and dropped in their kiddy-pool.
The shrimp congregate right next to the bank, where the moss(esp. coontail moss) and weeds grow, in no more than 1-2 ft of water. From about May-Sept you could just net a big scoop of moss and dump it out on the bank and pick up probably 7-8 of these grass shrimp w/ each netfull of moss. So if this feller sells them for $10.00 per 12 shrimp, I was netting bout $6.00 each time. (Now at 24,I am thinking I shouldn't have gone to college w/this lucrative grass shrimp market developing.)
This lake was 12-15 acres w/ an average depth of 3-4ft, while the deepest part being 5-6ft. I am not sure what species they are, but I assume P. kadiakensis since they reproduced yearly.
Also, my parents moved about 20 miles from old house and my father built a 12-acre pond (avg.depth 6ft,deepest 15ft) and stocked it 10 years ago. So before they moved I netted 400-500 grass shrimp out of my old lake and carried them in an ice-chest full of water to our new pond. Now thats been about 5 years ago since I added the shrimp to new pond and during warm months all of the bass I catch are gorged with grass shrimp, so introducing them to our pond worked for us.
I was suprised when I read this forum about how many people have never heard of grass shrimp thriving and reproducing in ponds/lakes when they were so common my area.
Anyways I hope this post helped to get the ideas rolling. I would definitly recommend looking into this method of obtaining grass shrimp rather than the walmart route. Seems to me that if you caught them in a pond, you know they can survive in a pond. By the way, I dont think I lost many, if any, during the transport. Granted it was only 25 miles away, but it was hot, I had no aerator and didn't really have to rush them there. They are pretty hardy in my opinion. I just dumped them into shallow water upon arrival, no acclimation of water or anything special, and it worked for me.
If you live close to North La, just go net you some out. Surely they have to be more widespread than North Louisiana though.
