Tag Archives: bay scallops
Opening of season proves bay scallops are hard to find
While the rest of us admire fall foliage, North Fork baymen look to nature for signs that predict the health of adult bay scallops. They watch the docks and parking lots to see if they are littered with broken scallop shells dropped and picked over by gulls; a good sign. They scan the beaches after a strong wind to see if scallops have washed up, another good sign. This year, once again, the signs were not encouraging. The bay scallop season, which started Monday in New York and runs through March, looks to be just as bad this year as it has been for the past four, which means the most reliable way to get a bay scallop dinner is to know a fisherman — and the most reliable way for a fisherman to make a living is to fish for something else. >>click to read<< 13:03
Nantucket Scallop Harvest Nearly Doubles Over Last Season
Late Thursday morning, scalloper Keith Day was unloading his catch at the Nantucket Boat Basin, one of the few fishermen still dropping dredges at the end of the season. His assessment? “It’s been the best year I’ve had in 10 years,” Day said. “Even with the price where it is now, if you still fish and you still grind out on it, it equals out or you can make more than you made last year. There was just not enough last year. It’s been a pretty good season. I’m still getting my limit on the second to last day. Overall, it’s been a good season for me.” >click to read< 09:36
Banner Bay Scallop Year Not All Good News for Fishermen
It has been a bountiful season for the Vineyard’s bay scallop fishery, one of the last places left where fishermen are still able to pull in semi-consistent harvests. But scallopers have struggled to take advantage of the strong season because the spike in supply stressed a distribution network atrophied from years of uncertainty. “The market just closed down, three out of the four main buyers in Edgartown just totally shut down,” said Arno Ewing, who works on John Conlon’s Sengekontacket-based scalloping boat. “I don’t think I’ve seen prices this low in five years.” While earlier in the season scallopers could count on getting $27 per pound for their catch, fishermen on-Island are now only getting around $15. The situation was even more dire last month, when fishermen were hard-pressed to find any buyer at all, said Net Result fish market manager Mike Holtham, who sells scallops locally and to regional distributors. >click to read< 08:03
8 Types of Scallops – What to Know About Them and Ways to Cook
While they are no longer regarded as rich man’s food, they are still pretty pricey. And this is primarily due to the supply-and-demand concept. More importantly, they are full of health benefits. As impressive as scallops are, they are a confusing species. From dry versus wet scallops to divers and day boats, there’s a lot to them. We are here to clear the air. This article discusses the common scallop varieties and ways to cook each mollusk. We’ll also discuss how you can store them and how to avoid buying fake scallops. Yes, that’s right: Fake scallops exist. >click to read< 14:32
Long Island: When will bay scallops once again be plentiful?
After years of up and down harvests, 2021 is shaping up as another potentially poor year for bay scallops. Bay scallops have been a multi-million-dollar crop for the fishing industry, from the baymen or women who work hard to harvest them in, to the markets that sell them and the restaurants that feature them prominently on menus. The loss of this cash crop, such an iconic symbol of our bays, hurts many people and calls into question the present and future health of our bays, as changes in water temperatures and steady sea rise continue. For perspective, consider this: After the huge crops of previous years, a die-off in 1985 caused by algae blooms brought the scallop almost to extinction. >click to read< 11:07
Uncovering the secret lives of bay scallops – Fisherman Todd Corayer
Saturday last opened another sagging season steeped in stories of great harvests, piles of bushels of glistening shells and an aging promise of a paycheck by noon. While the fleet worked hard October bottom offshore, baymen rowed dories and sailed skiffs to drag dredges with rusty iron teeth meant for scanning sandy bottom teeming with shellfish that swim. The season was a savior for working men and women who relied on some endless bounty but history shows natural cycles, habitat degradation and the heavy hand of man all pressed on a tiny mollusk, the bay scallop.,, All those big houses trimmed in “Hey, Look At Me Outside White”, the ones with fine lawns of thick manicured grass sloping right to the bay, thoroughly soaked with nitrogen-based fertilizer to support canvas cocktail party shoes and beliefs that turfing Nature’s intentions for habitat and sustenance is the best decision, well they are polluting our waters and contributing to the demise of bay scallops. Todd Corayer is a lifelong fisherman who lives not far from the Saugatucket River with his wife, who supports his fishing mainly to get him out of the house and a young son who regularly catches more fish than him. Read the story here 08:36
Opening day: Island baymen continue an Island tradition
Monday, was opening day to take bay scallops in New York State waters, an annual and important ritual for the handful of Shelter Island baymen. Long after the once-ubiquitous Peconic Bay scallop stopped showing up, Shelter Island’s fishermen have saved the date. Baymen board boats before dawn, proceed to a carefully considered spot and throw a dredge, a metal frame with a net attached, overboard as the sun rises, hopeful they will haul it up full of bivalves. The limit for a commercial scalloper is 10 bushels, and on opening day last year it was easily reached. On Monday, however most baymen came back with two or three bushels to show for five or more hours of fighting wind, rough water and heavy dredges. Sunday night before the big day, a line of boats docked at the end of Congdon Road were loaded with dredges, neatly stowed and ready for deployment. By 6 the next morning, a few were already gone, while the operators of the others were exchanging top- secret information in the time-honored method impervious to Russian hackers. Read the story here 10:43
Peconic Bay scallop season off to a slow on Long Island
Long Island fishermen are saying that it’s a challenging year for Peconic Bay scallops, with the first day’s harvest “less than half” of what it was last year, said manager Keith Reda at Braun Seafood Co. in Cutchogue. The season begins on the first Monday of November and runs through the end of March. By late afternoon Monday, Reda hadn’t seen a Peconic Bay scallop yet. “They’re still out there, looking,” he said of the shop’s fisherman suppliers. The Seafood Shop in Wainscott was preparing on Monday to sell its first three bushels, the harvest from the first of the shop’s five fishing boats that left docks around sunrise. The Seafood Shop will sell bay scallops for about $29 a pound if the supply is slim and $25 if it’s plentiful — or as demand falls after the New Year and the water gets especially cold. Read the rest here 14:44
Oak Bluffs Selectmen Try to Cool Heat Over Scallop Closure in Sengie
Oak Bluffs selectmen this week tried to broker a compromise solution in a heated dispute among town shellfishermen over the closing of Sengekontacket Pond to bay scalloping. Shellfish constable David Grunden opted to close the pond to scalloping this year because of a large number of seed scallops and small number of adult scallops. The decision was unanimously backed by the town shellfish committee. Read the rest here 13:03
Vineyard bay scallops provide hard work, good pay, high value
Aquipecten irradians, the scientific name for the bay scallop, is a species in low supply but high demand on dinner tables across the Island and country. Utilizing a lot of science, a healthy dose of ingenuity, and some help from Mother Nature, fishermen and town shellfish departments, supported by a considerable investment of more than $700,000 in taxpayer dollars this year alone, help sustain a bay scallop fishery on Martha’s Vineyard that is worth more than $1 million annually, sometimes much more. Read more here 17:41
