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Scallop Hunting for Massachusetts Divers
by Local Diver Matt Silvia
If you dive in Massachusetts, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll notice
that some folks seem to end their boat dives with a catch bag bursting at the
seams with scallops, and if you love seafood as much as I do, you’ll likely
start to wonder what you might have to do to come home with a meal like that.
The short answer is simply “Pick some up and take them with you”, but that’s
advice you can only take if you can find some scallops to pick up in the first
place. As those of you who’ve read my short guide to hunting lobsters are well
aware, I think it's a good idea when hunting to know a thing or two about your
quarry. Let's start by learning a few things about scallops, and see if that
doesn’t help us understand where to look for them.
About Scallops
There are two types of edible scallops that can be found in
Massachusetts waters, but since the bay scallop is both the smaller of the two
and easier to harvest from ell-grass beds with rubber boots than with scuba
gear, the focus of our discussion will be the larger scallops known to
biologists as Placopecten magellanicus, and to the rest of us as Atlantic sea
scallops, smooth scallops, or giant scallops.
Sea scallops are bivalve mollusks, meaning that they have
two shell halves and are closely related to the clam family. Their shells have a
fan-like shape, radiating threadlike ridges, readily visible concentric growth
rings, and they flare out to form small “wings” near the hinge where the two
shell halves meet. The shell halves, or valves, are lined with a mantle from
which small sensory tentacles and hundreds of blue eyes protrude. The shells are
typically five to six inches in diameter, and although scallop shells larger
than 7 inches are rare, they can sometimes reach as much as nine inches.
Sea scallops are active swimmers. Their shell halves are
connected to one another via a strong muscle known as the adductor, which
scallops use to first open their shells and then rapidly snap them shut, thereby
propelling themselves backwards through the water. For this reason, the adductor
muscle in scallops is more developed than it is in its non-swimming cousins the
clams, oysters, and mussels. It is this adductor muscle that we consider the
edible meat of the scallop, and the part that therefore motivates the scallop
diver. The rest of the scallop is usually either discarded or used as bait for
post-dive fishing, although in some parts of the world remote from Boston, the
roe is retained and eaten as well. It is well worth noting that it is the
discarded portions that can be contaminated by “red tide”. The retained adductor
muscle of scallops is generally considered safe to eat when other shellfish
fisheries have been closed due to blooms of red tide algae.
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Life Cycle of a Sea Scallop
Every year in the late summer and early fall, scallop
spawning begins. I’ll spare us the details of that process, and suffice it to
say that after they are fertilized, the eggs drift with the current until they
hatch into plankton-like larvae. These larvae, having only rudimentary swimming
ability, continue to drift for about a month or two until they have developed
the ability to excrete the sticky byssal threads they will use to anchor
themselves to the bottom. This more developed scallop, called a spat, then
descends to the bottom, and attaches itself to an available shell, rock, animal,
or other surface. Spat are very fragile, and any who are unfortunate enough to
descend on to loose sand will find themselves quickly destroyed by the shifting
bottom.
Once anchored, the spat will grow until it eventually loses
its byssal attachment and becomes a free-swimming juvenile, which will begin to
reach sexual maturity at about two years of age. Scallops remain active,
swimming to avoid predators, moving with the currents, and through growth and
exercise quadrupling the weight of the adductor muscle until they are between
four and six years old, when they reach a shell diameter of about four and one
half inches. The movements of young scallops are usually localized, and tend to
be strongly influenced by currents. As such, beds of young scallops tend to move
with the currents while beds of large adults tend to remain relatively fixed.
Populations on Georges Bank tend to remain in that area, as the currents
circulate and bring the drifting larvae back to the areas where they were
spawned, leading to the spat settling out among the adults.
Dietary
Habits of a Scallop
Sea scallops are opportunistic filter feeders, using their
gills to move and filter water containing suspended particulate material. Their
diet primarily consists of phytoplankton and microzooplankton, and they have the
ability to select which of the food particles they filter will be ingested.
Unwanted particles are expelled and carried away by the current.
While adult scallops depend on some water movement to bring
them food and carry away waste, too much current makes it difficult for scallops
to “grab” passing food particles. Likewise, too much inorganic matter suspended
in the water column can make feeding difficult, so they tend to feed in areas
with relatively little sediment.
Predation
Scallops are delicious, but we aren’t the only ones who
think so. It seems like a tasty, boneless medallion of meat appeals to just
about every carnivorous creature under the sea. Since they are planktonic,
scallop larvae are consumed by all manner of filter feeders from mollusks to
whales, and the juvenile and adult forms are favorites of cod, wolfish, pout,
sculpin, flounder, lobster, crabs, clam worms, and above all sea stars.
Fortunately for scallops (and us), as the shell diameter
increases, predation decreases. It becomes much harder to crush, chip, or pry
open the shells as they grow larger, so those that survive the first few years
of adulthood are likely to live long enough to make it into your bag.
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Scalloping
Gear
There isn’t really much special gear need for scalloping,
as you essentially just want to be able to pick them up, get them back to the
boat, clean them, and take the meat home. Here’s the equipment I use to get the
job done easily.
Catch Bag
I’ve been on several dives where I saw scallops and didn’t
have a bag with me. I’m a pretty poor juggler, so my best effort so far in that
case was to surface with six of them. Considering that I had to use my dump
valve with one hand, I’d say that was pretty good, but if getting scallops is
the purpose for your dive you’re almost certainly going to want to come home
with more than that. If so, you’ll want a place to put them, and when you need
something to put stuff in, there’s nothing quite like a bag.
Sure, you could bring an old burlap sack, and it would
probably be just fine, but there are plenty of bags available at your local dive
shop with features that make them much nicer to use. Which features you select
are up to you, but it’s a good idea to get one that can be latched shut, has a
wide mouth when open, drains readily, and is both big enough to hold a lot of
scallops and small enough to be manageable. I got the biggest bag I could when I
went shopping, and while it does hold plenty of “catch”, it also billows like a
sheet in the wind when it’s nearly empty, and that can be a bit of a hassle
underwater. Pick what works for you, and consider securing a metal bolt snap to
it so you can clip it off to a D-ring or lift bag.
Lift Bag and
Reel
A full bag of scallops can be very heavy, and also very
negatively buoyant. In order to swim a full bag to the surface, you’d have to
put yourself in a potentially hazardous position by inflating your BC bladder
well beyond what would normally be required in order to keep you neutral.
Accidentally dropping the bag under those circumstances could cause you to
rocket toward the surface uncontrollably, and of course that’s a scenario any
prudent diver will try to avoid.
Taking along a small lift bag with a 50lb capacity and a
reel with about 150 feet of line on it can provide a far safer means of getting
your scallops to the boat. When your catch bag starts to get heavy, instead of
adding air to your BC, secure your catch to the lift bag and put a quick puff of
air into it. Add just enough to make the lift bag “stand up”, but not enough to
make the catch bag buoyant. It’s better to add too little at this point than too
much. Continue to add small puffs of air to the lift bag until its buoyancy just
begins to offset the weight of the catch bag, which will allow you to move it
easily while still maintaining safe neutral buoyancy.
When your catch bag is as full as it’s going to get, attach
your reel to the lift bag. Unlock the reel so its spool can spin freely, but
keep a thumb on the spool so it stays put and doesn’t tangle. Check to see that
you, your buddy, and your gear are clear of the bags, and then check that there
are no entanglement hazards like mooring or lobster lines above you. Put a
little more air into the lift bag so that it becomes slightly buoyant. Release
the bag and let it ascend until it reaches the surface, and then make a slow,
controlled ascent beneath it while reeling up the slack in the line. Unless
you’ve made “drift dive” pickup arrangements with the boat captain ahead of
time, remember to stay close to the mooring line during your ascent!
Gauge
You probably won’t find a special 3 ½ inch scallop
measuring gauge, but that really shouldn’t be a problem, as any scallops smaller
than four inches are obviously small, and scarcely worth bothering with. Still,
if you want to be able to check that your scallops are of legal size, any 3 ½
inch measuring device will do. A ruler is an obvious choice, but if you plan to
buy a knife for scallop cleaning, one with a 3 ½ inch blade (or a mark at 3 ½
inches on the handle) would be perfect!
Knife
The best knives for scallop cleaning have blades that are
thin and short (often less than 3 inches), and they sometimes have a rounded
tip. They are available commercially, but many people choose to use a short
filet knife or even a shallow sharpened spoon instead. In a pinch, you can use a
dive knife, but having the right tool for the job will make it easier and likely
give you better results.
Storage
Container
After shucking, you’ll want a sealed storage container to
hold your meat. Tupperware, takeout soup containers, and the like are all fine,
but I prefer Ziplock freezer bags, since I’m an optimist and I can easily pack
several in case I catch my limit. After all, I do have a big catch bag.
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Scalloping Technique
Where to
find Scallops
Generally speaking, the easiest way to find a bed of
scallops is to find someone who already knows where a bed is, and then have them
take you there. Local dive clubs, retailers, and charter boats often schedule
scallop dives, and by signing up for one of these you can greatly improve your
chance of having a successful scallop dive. If, however, you have access to a
seaworthy boat and are keen to strike out on your own with dreams of hitting the
mother load, it will be helpful to know where scallops like to live, so you can
look for places like that.
For starters, the sea scallop population is distributed on
the Atlantic continental shelf of North America from Newfoundland to as far
south as North Carolina, which of course is a pretty large area to search. Like
most creatures though, scallops like to live where they are comfortable and have
an ample supply of food. It also stands to reason that they will be most
abundant when these criteria are met in a location where they are protected from
predators (such as commercial fishermen) to some extent, and where future
generations are kept close by circulating currents. What then does an adult sea
scallop consider comfortable? There are basically five criteria for scallop
comfort that we will look at: depth, temperature, substrate, salinity, and
current.
Concentrations of scallops known as beds typically occur at
depths ranging from 55-330 feet of seawater, but may also occur in waters as
shallow as 6 feet in estuaries and embayments along the Maine coast and in
Canada. At the other extreme, offshore beds have been reported in waters as deep
as 1150 feet! South of Cape Cod, warm surface currents tend to drive scallops
into deeper water, so that despite abundant scallops in sometimes massive beds,
divers are unlikely to find them there on any but the deepest recreational
dives.
Fortunately, it is often possible to find scallop
concentrations at depths as shallow as 60 feet in the waters North of Cape Cod,
which makes Cape Ann, Boston, and the South Shore ideal locations for scallop
diving. It is worth noting that the minimum depths for successful scallop diving
in Massachusetts all but completely preclude shore diving, as there are very few
shore sites from which a diver can access these depths without the aid of a boat
or other means of transport.
Scallops prefer chilly water, and have been found to grow
most rapidly in temperatures between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. They can
survive lower temperatures to some degree, but temperatures any higher than 70
degrees will quickly prove fatal to them. Fortunately, the temperatures scallops
prefer are the same temperatures we are likely to encounter when diving in
Massachusetts waters, and lethally warm temperatures at depth are not usually
something we need to be concerned about encountering here.
Adult sea scallops are generally found on what is sometimes
described as “broken bottom”, a flat mixed seabed substrate of firm sand,
gravel, shells and rock cobble. If the seabed material is too fine, and there is
a large quantity of suspended inorganic particles, this can interfere with
feeding, so scallops will tend to avoid these areas. If there is too much bottom
structure, there will tend to be a greater abundance of predators. However, in
the vicinity of wrecks and other obstructions, it is sometimes possible to find
beds that take advantage of the refuge that these “hangs” offer from the nets of
trawlers, whose captains will typically avoid them if possible.
As I said before, scallops require some water movement for
feeding, respiration, and removal of waste. Scallops from areas with good water
circulation often seem to have firmer flesh and less grit than those found in
areas where the current is poor. A mild current of about 10 cm/sec (or .2 Knots)
seems to be ideal, while currents above .5 Knots make it difficult for them to
feed efficiently. In the simplest terms, scallops like a gentle flow. As an
additional note, scallops like the salinity of undiluted sea water, so current
resulting from a freshwater source is less than ideal. In fact, if the salinity
drops below 16.5%, it can be deadly to sea scallops.
We know now that we are most likely to find scallops in
mildly cold waters north of Cape Cod, in depths greater than 60 feet, living on
flat broken bottom where there is a mild current of “full strength” seawater,
often (but not necessarily) in the vicinity of wrecks or other “gear fouling”
obstructions.
How to Catch
Scallops
Once you've found the scallops, you’re on seafood easy
street. All you have to do at this point is pick the little suckers up, and drop
them in your bag. There is a minimum size to keep in mind, but just try to grab
the large ones and you can discard any that are undersized later. At this point,
you should concern yourself with filling your bag before your remaining gas or
bottom time runs low. At the depths that scallops are likely to be found,
no-decompression limits tend to be short, and it can be tempting to stay too
long. In a word, don’t. Scallops are delicious, but not worth drowning for, and
there’s always another day to dive.
A big bag of scallops can be quite heavy, and also quite
negatively buoyant. If you try to carry them to the surface it will require
having plenty of lift in your BC. Ascending this way from depth can be extremely
dangerous, as accidentally dropping the bag will make you very buoyant, very
suddenly, and can easily cause an uncontrolled ascent. It is a good idea to use
a small lift bag and reel instead, so that you can send your bag to the surface
under control and then ascend normally to meet it. If you are unfamiliar with
the use of a bag and reel, I recommend asking a qualified instructor, or at the
very least practicing with a buddy in a controlled environment first. There’s a
lot that can go wrong, but like everything else there are tricks to it, and it
becomes easy with practice.
How to Clean
Scallops
While Sea Scallops can use their adductor muscles to close
their shells, they cannot hold them closed for very long. Because of this, once
they have been removed from the water they will quickly dry up and die.
Therefore, you’ll want to shuck your scallops immediately after catching them,
and get them into a refrigerated container as quickly as possible.
First, toss the undersized scallops overboard so they’ll
have the best possible chance of becoming big scallops later on. Then, get your
scallop knife out and select a scallop to clean. You’ll notice that the top
shell is more convex than the flatter bottom shell. Slide your knife in next to
the hinge, and work it outward along the bottom shell in order to cut the
adductor muscle free.
Open the scallop up, and look for the adductor. It should
be easy to find, as it’s the firm, light-colored round piece of meat. Remove the
adductor muscle, and discard the unwanted portions overboard, where the shells
can act as new anchor points for future generations of spat. Put the adductor
muscles directly into a sealed container, and get them on ice immediately.
If you are so inclined, scallops are quite good raw (sushi
restaurants call them hotategai), and safe to eat, so feel free to sample a few
right out of the shell. I often eat my fill of fresh scallops before any of them
make it home to cook, and I enjoy the looks of surprise from the uninitiated
almost as much as I enjoy the food.
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The Law and the Scallop
As always, your best source for up-to-date information on
the fishing laws is the state government, and there are several online resources
you can use to find out what you need to know. The Massachusetts Division of
Marine Fisheries website is a good starting point, or you can call them at
(617)626-1520 for up to date details.
That said, here are some of the regulations I’ve found in
my searches. I don’t claim they’re complete, and they may have changed since I
wrote this, but to the best of my knowledge, what you find here is accurate for
now.
322 CMR 6.05 Atlantic Sea Scallop (Placopecten Magellanicus)
Management
1. It is unlawful to fish for, catch, take, have on
board, or off-load from any fishing vessel, Atlantic Sea Scallops the shells of
which are less than 3 1/2 inches in diameter from the hinge to the outer edge.
2. Notwithstanding 322 CMR 6.05(1), it is lawful to
fish for, catch, take, have on board, or off-load from any fishing vessel
Atlantic Sea Scallops with shells less than 3 1/2 inches in the longest diameter
provided said Atlantic Sea Scallops comprise no more than 10% of the entire lot
of Atlantic Sea Scallops. This 10% tolerance shall be determined by numerical
count taken at random of not less than one peck no more than four pecks of the
entire lot of Atlantic Sea Scallops.
3. In any one day, it is unlawful for a
recreational fisherman to harvest or possess more than one bushel of whole
scallops or four quarts of shucked scallops for personal use.
4. Permits
a. No person shall take or possess scallops in
excess of the recreational fishery limits as defined in 322 CMR 6.05(3) unless
licensed as a commercial fisherman under the authority of 322 CMR 7.01.
b. Commercial fishermen who harvest sea scallops by
hand must possess a commercial permit endorsed for sea scallop diving.
c. No person shall be issued a commercial permit
endorsed for sea scallop diving unless he or she is a bona fide resident of the
Commonwealth or is a resident of a state that grants equal access to
Massachusetts residents.
d. Each individual diver on board a vessel where
the scallop quantities exceed the recreational possession limit as noted in 322
CMR 6.05(3) must possess a commercial permit endorsed for sea scallop diving.
e. Commercial fishermen who harvest sea scallops by
mobile gear from waters under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth must possess
a Coastal Access commercial permit as defined in 322 CMR 7.05.
5. No scallops shall be landed or brought ashore in
the shell unless the area fished is classified as Approved by the Division in
accordance with the National Shellfish Sanitation Program.
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Matt's Scallop Recipe
Now that you’ve managed to get those scallops you wanted,
you might be wondering how best to prepare them. There are many delicious
recipes for sea scallops, and they can be baked, broiled, grilled, stir-fried,
deep-fried, sautéed, or even micro-waved. There are a couple of rules that hold
true for almost all recipes though. First, be careful not to overcook them.
They’re tender and edible before they even touch the pan, and they toughen
easily. As soon as they lose their translucent color and turn opaque, they’re
done. Second, if you plan to use them in a sauce, cook the scallops separately
and combine them after they are done. Otherwise, the water that cooks out of the
scallops is likely to make your sauce too thin.
That said, I’ll give you one of my favorite recipes to get
you started.
Bacon
Wrapped Scallops
Ingredients:
Scallops (cut in half if larger than bite-sized)
Bacon
Toothpicks
Brown Sugar (optional)
Directions
In a skillet, cook the bacon until it is approximately half
done and still flexible. Wrap a piece of the bacon around each scallop and
secure it by skewering with a toothpick. Sprinkle with brown sugar if desired,
and arrange on a baking sheet. Broil for 3 minutes on each side, and serve hot
as an appetizer.
Good luck, and happy hunting,
Matt Silvia
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