The Fish Company Where Forrest Gump Really Got All of His Shrimp From

REMEMBER WHEN FORREST GUMP and Lieutenant Dan rode out a hurricane on a shrimp boat, then hit the motherlode of a catch? Paramount Pictures bought 6,125 pounds of shrimp for those scenes. Cyndy Gay Carr still has the handwritten receipt hanging on the wall of her family’s Gay Fish Company on Saint Helena, a rural Sea Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Scenes from 1991’s The Prince of Tides were filmed here, too—rose-gold light hitting blue water, calm as glass, curling through tufts of salt marsh. “Some of our guys helped drive the boat,” Carr says of the latter production. “And they were told at some point to duck so they wouldn't be in the shot.”

But Gay Fish Company isn’t a Hollywood prop-making operation. It’s been a livelihood for the Gay family, and the shrimpers who dock here, since 1948. The industry is inextricably connected to place—the low-lying land, the rhythm of the tides and the marshes that help provide protective nursing ground for shrimp. St. Helena Sound is located along the ACE Basin (named for Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers), which can act as filtration systems. The sound has a pristine watershed, which could contribute to the sweetness of the shrimp.

As the kids grew up, they pitched in—shoveling ice, unloading boats and driving trucks. Carr’s kids (a fourth generation), nieces and nephews now work shifts between other pursuits. Carr remembers the shrimping heyday as a young child, when the family worked late and shrimp piled on the table to be headed. “Mom told me, ‘just sit by the wood stove,’” on those chilly, dark nights. After school, Carr started a career as a paralegal and mortgage lender. But she returned to the shrimp business full-time in recent years, now at age 53, along with brother Tim Gay, who also owns a 50 percent stake.

“I traded in my Audi and high heels for a 2011 Honda Pilot and shrimp boots,” she says.

These days Gay Fish Company has about seven shrimp boats at the dock including one captained by an 80-year-old shrimper, another by a retired pilot and even a 25-year-old newer to the industry. Carr has other plans to keep the tradition alive, hosting tours and classes. “We're trying to incorporate the community more into what we do out here,” she says. “Teaching people to get outdoors and step away from the electronics and to do things the old-fashioned way.”

And yet to quote Gump, in an instance where Hollywood actually nails it: “Shrimping is tough.” The industry has struggled against rising fuel prices, regulation to protect marine life, foreign imports and loss of workers.

That’s all the more reason to make a trip now, to see how the sea threads the marshes, to taste the distinct flavor cultivated in these waters and experience a precarious but important cultural pursuit. Unlike some of the larger cities of the Lowcountry (Charleston and Savannah) and even popular vacation spots like Hilton Head, Saint Helena feels quiet and untouched in the best of ways. It keeps focus on the natural landscape, the rewards of its agriculture and shrimping, and the people who call this place home.

Carr’s father Charles Gay, 79, still works at the docks six days a week. He remembers when Highway 21 nearby was a dirt road. His father, John H. Gay Sr. (a.k.a. Capt. Buster), worked as an electrician at a naval hospital. He oystered on the side, eventually transitioning to full-time shrimping. Charles was one of his six children. “They ran these islands barefooted and free,” Carr says. “There was not much out here.”