Is the NC Legislature about to take another shot at a shrimp trawling ban?

By Mark Jurkowitz | Outer Banks Voice on March 4, 2026

By Mark Jurkowitz | Outer Banks Voice

Opponents of the trawling ban made their voices heard in Raleigh in June 2025. (File photo, credit: NC Catch Facebook page)

The fishing community and many on the Outer Banks breathed a major sigh of relief in June 2025 when a NC Senate measure that would have imposed a shrimp trawling ban died in the NC House.

The hard-fought victory came after protestors opposed to the measure—which would have banned trawling in all of the state’s inland waters and within a half-mile of the Atlantic shoreline—showed up in force in Raleigh to pressure legislators. The Outer Banks Voice – Shrimp trawling ban dies in NC House this session

A few days after that “Shrimpgate” episode, Dare County Commissioner Chairman Bob Woodard wrote a letter proposing a coalition of neighboring counties to protect the commercial fishing industry—an idea that became the NC Coastal Counties Fisheries Commission.

In his letter in July 2025, Woodard referred to the defeat of the ban, but mentioned the probability that “we will see similar legislation resurface in the future.” Now, he and others are warning that another attempt by the NC Legislature to revive the ban may be looming in the upcoming short session that begins in April.

Woodard, who now chairs the NC Coastal Counties Fisheries Commission, mentioned the possibility of another shrimp trawling ban effort at the March 2 Dare County Commissioners meeting. And he raised the issue at the March 4 Coastal Counties Fisheries Commission meeting, stating that “rumor has it…that in the short session [the ban measure] may be brought back up. We’ll just need to be vigilant.”

The trade group, the North Carolina Fisheries Association, also posted a March 3 message from State Representative Keith Kidwell asserting that NC Senate President Pro Tem “Phil Berger was at a meeting in Greensboro yesterday…talking about ‘slipping in’ HB 442, the shrimp trawling ban, during the short session. No public debate. No transparency. No input from the coastal families whose livelihoods hang in the balance.”

It is worth noting that Kidwell, who represents part of Dare County in the NC House, was narrowly defeated in the March 3 Republican primary by Darren Armstrong. At the same time, Berger, often described as one of the most powerful politicians in the state, finished in a virtual tie with his Republican primary challenger, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.