It’s November, and that means bay scallop season has arrived on the Vineyard. But by most accounts, it will be an average to poor year for scalloping, both up Island and down.
“It’s been a really slow year,” said Edgartown fisherman Arno Ewing as he steered his skiff into Cape Pogue Pond Monday morning. “But that’s after three really good years in a row. So it’s what you can expect.”
Commercial and recreational scalloping is now open in every Island town. Scalloping is an important winter industry for independent Vineyard fishermen who rely on the Island’s historically rich saltwater ponds to drag or dipnet for the high-demand shellfish crop. But in recent years, pollution and coastal development has threatened the notoriously fickle bivalves, and early reports from Island towns have painted a grim outlook for the 2018-2019 season.
“It’s not a banner year, by any means,” Edgartown shellfish constable Paul Bagnall said this week. “We’re cooking along with 25 to 30 limits a day, which isn’t too bad. But last year we were doing around 45 to 50. It was regionally a good scallop year, and this year, well, it’s looking to be regionally a not so good scallop year.”
Last year, Edgartown issued 100 commercial scalloping licenses. This year, the town has not yet reached 80. Still, Mr. Bagnall said he feels fortunate that there are any scallops at all in Cape Pogue Pond, Edgartown harbor, Katama Bay and Sengekontacket Pond.
“We’re lucky we have them, we just don’t have a lot of them,” Mr. Bagnall said. “There’s never any easy scalloping. There’s just good scalloping, and bad scalloping, and I would put this in the mediocre quality.”
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