"Better" season predicted for commercial scallopers
BY PETER B. BRACE
Cautiously, Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto predicts that the 2006/2007 commercial scallop season is going to be more productive than last season's paltry 5,500 bushels.

"Without putting a number on it, I think the season will be better than last year," said Fronzuto. "The scallops that we are seeing do have growth rings. Some of them do have double growth rings.

"Some of the stuff that we saw the other day had a growth ring about a third of the way up and then another one at the top."

Going by the harbinger of recreational scallopers' harvest from the shallows of the harbors, a month before the commercial guys can drop their dredges, is usually a safe bet on how the five-month season will play out.

The 2004/2005 recreational season saw pushrakers, snorkelers and view boxers hauling in endless bushels of scallops wherever they waded for them, preceding the most bountiful commercial season - 32,500 bushels - since scallopers hauled in 44,000 bushels in the 1989/1990 commercial season.

Likewise, October 2005's dismal offerings for family scallopers translated into the worst harvest since the 5,800 bushels taken in 1997/1998 season.

This year, recreational scallopers did OK. Anyone able to get beyond wader height was able to bring home enough for a meal and maybe some for the freezer, but only if you knew one of just two or three locations around the island. "The divers and the snorkelers and

the people who can get in the deep water shall remain nameless. That's it in a nutshell. The people who are in deep water off Pocomo, in deep water off of Third point and in deep water off of Esther's Island are doing well," said Fronzuto.

That is because of the reproductive biomass, explained Town Biologist Keith Conant, the total number of sexually mature scallops able to spawn in the harbors. Conant dove 28 transects in Nantucket Harbor and two in Madaket Harbor, some more than a mile in length, covering 331,000 square feet to see what scallops there were amongst the eelgrass. What he found is not encouraging. Of the spat lines Conant put out in the harbor, he reports that recruitment was not very good this year.

"The populations in these transects were very limited, except for a few areas, so that leads me to believe that biomass is very low in the harbor and we have to start worrying about a threshold population, which is the number of scallops needed to maintain diversity and a sound reproductive biomass," said Conant.

Spat lines are strings of mesh bags packed with monofilament anchored near populations of scallops. When the scallops spawn, the larvae that is produced attaches to whatever it can in the water column, including eelgrass on the bottom and onion bags packed with fishing line. The amount of spat in the bags is a good indicator of what is in the rest of the harbors.

Last year, Conant found plenty of seed in his spat backs indicating a good season this year, but now his forecast sounds a lot like the dire prediction of a fisheries collapse he made at on Sept. 20, 2005 at a Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board meeting.

"It's not going to be great year," said Conant. "It's going to be a little while before we have great year. It's going to be better than last year, but it's hard to say. It depends on how hard the fishermen are willing to work."

Their efforts could be further restrained should Fronzuto decide to cordon off a section of Nantucket Harbor between Abrams and Quaise points where he and Conant have discovered a dearth of seed that could make next year's season more bountiful. Fronzuto said there is a line of seed in this area sized at a quarter to half-dollar that he wants to protect.

"We're going to look at that pretty close on the first, second and third [of November] and if that's the case, we're going to set some buoys on that and close it for the rest of the season," said Fronzuto. "There's no sense in going in there and dredging up that seed for the sake of a few scallops."

Fronzuto dealt out 176 licenses this year, 40 of which are free licenses given to retired commercial scallopers 65 and older. Last season, he handed out 179.

Almost more than a bountiful season, Fronzuto wants a colder winter than last winter, one in which the harbors either freeze and or there several weeks when it is 28 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature that kills seed scallops and causes him to cancel scalloping for those days.

"One thing I really think is important is the cold days," he said. "It really lays down a good growth ring, it gives the bottom a couple days to relax; we need the cold weather.

Last winter's relatively snowless, mild winter did not promote any of these factors and may have contributed to another poor harvest this year, Fronzuto believes.

"I hope it gets cold and it stays cold," he said.