9:28 am The Scoop on Local Oysters
The best oysters in Charleston come from the Bulls Bay area North of Mount Pleasant. Bulls Bay is a very large but shallow body of water that stretches from Awendaw, SC to McClellanville, SC. The entire bay is open to the ocean; there is not a narrow inlet that limits the amount of water that can flow in and out such as is found between most other barrier islands. This geography creates a unique habitat for the growth of oysters and other marine life. The tides flush this bay and surrounding creeks with each lunar cycle creating an influx of high salinity water with the incoming tides and a purging of low salinity rain water and runoff with each outgoing tide. There are a few public areas where anyone with a salwater fishing license can pick oysters, but these oyster beds have been over-picked and not re-planted so the oyster population has suffered over the years; the Department of Natural Resources has programs designed to re-plant oysters on public beds, but it would require a commitment of time and energy from many volunteers to get these beds back to a good producing status. The best oysters come from private “Culture Permits” held by a few commercial fishermen. These fishermen maintain their private beds by raking down and re-planting oyster cultch every year; they are re-planted at a rate that allows them to be harvested year after year providing the general public with a consistent supply of delicious, salty oysters. Call Jeff at 843-568-6380 to order some of his oysters…he’ll deliver them straight from the creek to your door for the same (or less) than it will cost you to pick them up at the “local” seafood store. I put “local” in quotations because the only thing that is ALWAYS local is the location of the building. You can get oysters from many different states in these local seafood stores. They DO sell local oysters and local shrimp, but they also sell out of town and out of state AND even out of the country seafood as well. When you go to purchase seafood from these businesses, please inquire as to the origin of what you’re buying, and if you have a choice, please support our local economy by buying truly local seafood.
There are Roger, but we don’t post them on the site because they can change throughout the year as far as what is open for harvesting and what isn’t. The best place to find maps in the Charleston, SC area is here: http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/shellfish/pubshell.html
Are there any maps of the oyster beds in the area
Posted by Roger Beatty, on July 11th, 2008, at 4:50 am. #.