I am now a scalloper. I hunt scallops. It’s actually quite fun! For those who don’t know, scallops are little seafood delights. They are found in shells that look like the Shell Oil logo, but without the “Shell” name. My in-laws have introduced me to the extraveganza.
July is quite early in the season – this means the scallops are smaller but more plentiful than later in the year. We spent the first day out on the pontoon boat going from spot to spot, with my brother-in-law, Andrew, and I being the “scouts” (keep in mind – I’ve never done this before).
The daily limit is 2 gallons of scallops per person per day, or 10 gallons per boat. Day one saw about one gallon of scallops found between the 7 of us. Not good. Scallops in the shells become much less once they are cleaned.
Day two we spent at the beach. Andrew and I got the itch to go hunting for more scallops down the road, and a short two hours later, we each had 2 gallons! Four gallons of scallops! Now we’re talking!
Day three, we were back out on the boat. Where did we go? Straight to our honey pot spot from day 2, of course! This time, we had a few helpers, and only a half-day rental of the pontoon. In a short two hours, Andrew and I each collected another 2 gallons, the others found another gallon, and we went back to the marina with 5 gallons of scallops!
To put this in perspective, this 10 gallons of scallops that we had collected over a 3 day period “shucked” down to about a gallon of edibles. We took our shucked and cleaned scallops to the restaurant where they fried half and blackened the other half. They were delicious! And as a little dessert, they also said the cooks were quite impressed – our scallops were surprisingly large! Go us!
Now I have the scalloping bug – I can’t wait to go agian. Next time, I’ll tell you all about how we actually catch the little boogers.
Bradley Minnigan 