Wanna go shrimping?

Now here's something delicious.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is getting ready to open a commercial shrimp pot fishery in Prince William Sound for the first time in nearly 20 years.

The main quarry will be those big, wonderful spot shrimp, or spot prawns as some folks call them.

The state has set a modest guideline harvest level of 55,000 pounds.

To catch them, fishermen must register by 5 p.m. April 1.

The fishery will open at 8 a.m. April 15.

Click here to read the state news release and see a map of the area open for shrimping.

As I said at the top, it's been quite a while since we've seen a Prince William Sound commercial shrimp pot fishery.

In 1991, the last year the fishery was open, 15 participating vessels landed 17,302 pounds of spot shrimp and 278 pounds of coonstripe shrimp.

The peak year was 1986, when 80 vessels landed 286,105 pounds of spot shrimp and 3,715 pounds of coonstripes.

The state closed the fishery after the 1991 season due to weak shrimp stocks. Noncommercial harvests for subsistence, personal use and sport purposes were allowed to continue.

Since the commercial closure, spot shrimp have slowly but steadily increased in abundance, state biologists say. In December 2008, the Alaska Board of Fisheries approved a plan for resuming commercial shrimping.

And here we are.

I've have a chance to sample a few spot shrimp, y'all, and they're absolutely divine.

Spot shrimp are the largest type of shrimp in the North Pacific. They take their name from the white, paired spots located just behind the head and just in front of the tail.

A shout out to my good friend in Anchorage for alerting Deckboss to the Fish and Game news release.