Tis the season, as the water cools rapidly, that many minds, around here anyway, turn to scallops. New York State will allow the start of harvesting from its waters on Nov. 4; town waters will open on Nov. 10, a Sunday. How good the take will be remains to be seen. I have my doubts.
In recent years, it seems there might have been one good season in a 10-year period and a halfway decent year 1 in 5. Researchers have implicated a host of causes, including “brown tide” algae blooms, eelgrass loss, and seawater acidification. Such is the witches’ brew in the bays now, where, at best, things ain’t what they used to be.
Back when I was a kid, fall in Amagansett rang with the clank of scallop shells as they were flipped from shuckers’ hands into the waste piles. Now all but one or two shucking houses remain, and after opening week they shut down for the most part.
Having been on the water a lot this year, what I have seen is not promising. There were few bugs, as the small scallops are called, and even fewer large ones anywhere.
A friend who goes on snorkeling reconnaissance missions well before the season’s opening told me he had not seen any scallops anywhere. This is not to say there will be none, but the early signs are dim.
Several seasons back, when Gardiner’s Bay suddenly produced a huge crop of massive scallops, there had been hints the year before about what was to come in the wash-ups of prodigious quantities of bugs after a good blow.
Clams are doing fine, though. There are so many, in fact, it seems only my civic duty to dig as many chowders as I can to give the small ones and other shellfish a chance.
Bluefish are another story. I caught only a handful this year, enough to fire up the smoker just once. Porgies, on the other hand, and small black sea bass were seemingly everywhere.
Oh, to be a fish or blessed with Poseidon’s underwater sight. Then maybe I’d have half a clue about what is going on — and know where the scallops are hiding.