Scallop season begins July 1. Do you know where your snorkel is?

June 29, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Get your snorkel and swim fins ready: it’s time to go hunt scallops.

Scallop season opens July 1 and is a big draw for Floridians until it ends Sept. 10, said Citrus County-based Sea Grant agent Don Sweat.

Early reports suggest a good season, said Sweat, whose region includes some of the state’s busiest scalloping waters.

“It’s a super, super family activity,” said Sweat, a marine extension agent with Florida Sea Grant, a UF-affiliated coastal research and education program. “It’s like a big Easter egg hunt.”

State waters in the Gulf of Mexico open to scalloping run from the Pasco-Hernando county line to the popular Steinhatchee area to Bay County’s Mexico Beach Canal.

That doesn’t mean scallops are evenly distributed through that area, however. St. Joseph Bay and the area between the Suwannee and Weeki Wachee rivers have traditionally had some of the healthiest scallop populations.

Commercial scalloping is banned in Florida. Recreational scalloping south of the Suwannee River has been allowed during open season since July 2002, after a seven-year shutdown because of limited scallop populations.

The scallop populations grew stronger thanks to restoration efforts, prompting state officials to allow scalloping once again.

Bill Arnold, a research scientist with the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said while the most recent scallop counts weren’t as high as he’d like, this season is still a go.

But if the numbers don’t improve, he said, recreational scallopers could see a shortened or even closed season in coming years.

In the late 1990s, researchers, including UF’s Sweat, who knew scallops to be “catastrophic spawners” – meaning that when one spawns, others follow suit – began putting as many as 100 hatchery-reared scallops together in cages on the bay bottom in the Crystal River and Homosassa River region where healthy scallop populations had once lived.

The spawning ensued and the restocking program was successful enough to prompt state officials to reopen the area to scalloping, said UF marine economist Chuck Adams, who studied the economic impact of scalloping in Citrus County in 2003.

Visitors with mollusks on their minds brought in at least $1.6 million that year to Citrus County businesses, buying everything from swim fins to nets and patronizing restaurants, gas stations and hotels, he said.

Recreational scallopers between age 16 and 65 need a Florida saltwater fishing license.

The bag limit is two gallons of scallops still in the shell, or one pint of scallop meat. A boatload of people can have no more than 10 gallons of whole scallops or a half-gallon of scallop meat.

You may harvest scallops only by hand or with a landing or dip net.

Most recreational scallopers use a snorkel, swim mask, fins and small mesh bag. A “diver down” flag must be displayed from the boat when snorkelers are in the water.

Most scallopers take a boat to water between 4 and 10 feet deep where they anchor, get into the water and snorkel over grassbeds, collecting scallops by hand.

Scallops are often on the bottom of seagrass beds or in places where the grass meets the bottom.

“It’s a great half-day activity for the family,” Sweat said. “Spend a couple hours out on the water, take a picnic, make a day of it.”

For a brochure on recreational scalloping, go to: www.flseagrant.org/program_areas/fisheries/scalloping/index.htm.