If the bay scallop fishery can be restored to places like Cape Cod and Long Island, the Vineyard may be able to take credit for it.
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) is in the midst of a multi-year scientific experiment in Menemsha Pond that could have a wide-ranging impact on the future of bay scallops in the region.
The commercial bay scalloping season opened yesterday in Aquinnah. Aquinnah is the last town on the Island to open the commercial season. Fishermen have been harvesting scallops in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Chilmark and Tisbury.
For Edgartown shellfishermen, it would be unconscionable to have an autumn and winter without fishing for and harvesting bay scallops. On Cape Cod and Long Island, however, the scallops have all but disappeared.
Warren Gaines, deputy shellfish constable for Edgartown, has spent the past two summers making sure the bay scallop fishery in town remains healthy and viable. His expanding efforts follow a bit of a scare when, for at least a decade, bay scallop landings from Cape Pogue Pond haven’t been up to waterfront expectations.
Vineyard consumers are enjoying the lowest retail prices on bay scallops in at least ten years thanks to a renewed abundance of the tasty bivalve on Nantucket.
The Nantucket resurgence has been pushing down wholesale as well as retail prices on both Islands.
At Menemsha Seafood in Chilmark, owner Stanley Larsen said the retail price for bay scallops is around $16. His cousin, Louis Larsen of the Net Result, a fish market in Vineyard Haven, said the retail price is about the same at his store.
Already this fall one Island angler has won a brand-new pickup truck for a huge striped bass he caught and the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby isn’t over yet.
That’s because he caught it in a different contest.
Morgan Taylor, 24, of Edgartown last week won the Angler of the Year Award in the annual Striper Cup, sponsored and run by the monthly publication On the Water. Mr. Taylor won the award for a 52-pound striped bass he caught from the shore way back in June.
The late Foster Silva, longtime superintendent for The Trustees of Reservations on Chappaquiddick who loved to tell perfect strangers that he had received his degree from Katama University, had an opinion on the subject of bay scallops. Cape Pogue scallops, he said, were the sweetest. No arguments.
Vineyard bay scallops, the Island’s biggest export this time of year, are at a premium.
Even though fishermen are coming ashore on the mainland with product, Roy Scheffer of Edgartown, a longtime commercial fisherman, said: “We have the nicest scallops. It looks like it is going to be a good Christmas.”
The price fell early in November, but it is back up now. At the market, fishermen can expect to get paid as much as $13 a pound for their shucked product. Consumers can expect to pay close to $17 a pound retail.
Chilmark’s most diehard scallopers will have a chance to increase the bushel limit in exchange for some community service.
Menemsha seafood retailer Karsten Larsen convinced selectmen at a meeting Tuesday to raise the small pond limits from two to three bushels a day, arguing that those ponds are oversubscribed with small scallops which would die in a freeze and potentially damage the pond bed.
Dear Mr. President: We read in The New York Times last week about your first state dinner, and we loved the kitchen tour that Mrs. Obama gave to culinary students and her comments about eating locally grown foods. And we read that the first dinner included Nantucket scallops, a favorite of yours, Mrs. Obama said.
The question of what is a harvestable sized bay scallop will be the subject of a public hearing next week on the Cape. The state Division of Marine Fisheries is hosting the hearing at 3 p.m. on Jan. 6 to gather input, following emergency action they took last fall to quiet a dispute between fishermen and regulators.
The hearing will take place at the Barnstable Senior Center, 825 Falmouth Road, Route 28 in Hyannis.
