Scallop season is around the corner, with three Island towns set to open shellfishing next month.
The select boards in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Chilmark all voted this week to set their scalloping dates.
In Edgartown, recreational scalloping will begin Oct. 1 and run through March 31. There is a limit of one 10-gallon wash basket per week, including shells.
Commercial bay scallop season will be from Oct. 21 through March 31 with a limit of three level 10-gallon wash baskets per day including shells.
In Oak Bluffs, the season will open for recreational permit holders on Oct. 14 at Sengekontacket Pond. Lagoon Pond will not open to recreational scallopers until Nov. 2.
Commercial permit holders in Oak Bluffs can start fishing Sengekontacket on Oct. 28, and Lagoon Pond on Nov. 4.
Town officials plan to open the harbor to recreational permit holders on Dec. 7.
Recreational shellfishermen can take one heaping bushel and commercial fishermen can take three heaping bushels per day in inside waters and five struck bushels per day for outside waters.
In Chilmark, the bay scallop season starts Oct. 14 for recreational scallopers and on Nov. 18 for commercial.
“All the folks on the committee consented that they want to wait a little bit, let the scallops get a little bigger and then try to catch that Thanksgiving hike if that’s going to happen this year,” shellfish constable Isaiah Scheffer said at a select board meeting Tuesday.
Additionally, the oyster season will open both recreationally and commercially on Nov. 4. The commercial limit is 1,000 oysters per day, three days a week from Monday to Friday with prior notification to the constable of planned dates. Both seasons’ dates were approved unanimously by the select board.
Gwyn Skiles, Addison Antonoff and Katrina Liu contributed to this article.
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