Buras, who comes from a family full of fishermen, said he got started shrimping early in life.
“Probably from the time I was 5 years old, my dad was taking me on a boat,” he said. “And my parents got me a boat when I was 12 to keep me out of trouble, so after school and on the weekends I was in the bayou, hunting and fishing and shrimping. When I was 16, I quit school and ended up getting my own boat and started working on my own. I’m 38 now, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
 COURTESY PHOTO Franklinton resident Waylon Buras, left, is pictured on his shrimping boat, Miss Carmine, along with his deckhand, Chookee. Buras, a native of Venice, is featured in the new Discovery Channel series “Ragin’ Cajuns.” Advertisement |
In addition to shrimping, Buras was filmed for the show taking part in some of his favorite pastimes such as hunting and fishing, he said.
Buras’ involvement with “Ragin’ Cajuns” began when he was one of the fishermen who was called and was asked if he would like to participate in a meeting set up by the production company that created the show. He said he and a number of other fishermen were interviewed at Riverside Restaurant in Venice, and he was later contacted about shooting a promo video on his boat. Following that, the show was picked up by Discovery, and he was chosen to be a part of it.
Participating in the show Buras said, was an enjoyable experience.
“It’s all new,” he said. “It’s exciting. You don’t know what to expect. We haven’t seen the show yet, but I think it’s going to be good.”
Born and raised in Venice, Buras moved to Franklinton after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, seeking a place for his family to live that would be further inland, he said.
“Hurricane Katrina cleaned out my whole entire family,” he said. “My grandparents, it was the third time that they lost everything. And at the time I wanted to build a house. I had my baby on the way at the time, and I just didn’t want to go through what my grandparents went through so many times, so I decided to move to Franklinton just to get to higher ground for my family’s sake.”
The move to Franklinton means Buras has to frequently travel to Venice, a place where he still spends 90 percent of his time because it is where he shrimps out of and where his boat is docked.
“But when a storm comes it’s kind of that I have a peace of mind, because I know my family’s OK and they’re not on the road having to evacuate,” said Buras, adding that he has to go to Venice to move his boat and “get it out of harm’s way” in the event of a hurricane.
When Buras is in Franklinton for a length of time, he said he begins to miss the place where he grew up.
“I’m addicted to the water, being on the water, and in Franklinton the only water I see is the Bogue Chitto River,” he said.
However, Buras said the people in Franklinton are very friendly and that he likes living in the town.
“I’ve enjoyed living here,” he said. “I would never want to move and live anywhere else. If we wouldn’t have hurricanes I’d be back in Venice, but unfortunately that’s never going to happen.”
The shrimping industry, Buras said, took a serious hit during Hurricane Katrina.
“Katrina devastated the fleet,” he said. “A lot of the boats were torn up and messed up. It did a lot of coastal damage, coastal erosion. We lost a lot of our breeding ground.”
Another disaster that impacted the Louisiana seafood market was the 2010 B.P. oil spill, which, Buras said, essentially “ruined our reputation as having the best seafood in the world.”
“Everybody comes to Louisiana because they want the seafood, and so that’s something that we’re fighting to get back, is our reputation now,” he said. “And I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.”
The first of this season’s seven episodes will air Tuesday at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel.物
Comments
Fisherman wrote on Jan 16, 2012 10:20 AM: