Preparing For Opening Day
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE PUBLISHER

F amily scallop season starts today, October 1. Since Wednesday is paper day and I knew I wouldn't be able to get out for the first low tide of the day, I took a walk down to Warren's Landing in the gloom of Sunday to survey the scene and to try to decide if I should try again in the place where I always go first in what has become a yearly skunking. One year wasn't bad - I can't tell you which year or I would have to shoot you - but every other attempt to pull scallops from an area scoured by anchor chains has been largely futile.

Actually, the last time I really got a real crop of scallops off Warren's Landing was in 1957 - August to be exact. Only a couple of boats were moored in the harbor in those days, and there weren't all the big houses around. A buddy and I gathered a bucketful with our bare hands in about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, we did it right in front of the shellfish warden's boathouse. (How would we know?) He came along for one of his Tuckernuck trips just as we were admiring our bucketful. Until that moment, I had always thought of him as a bit of a buccaneer. When he realized what we had done, it wasn't pretty. From then on, I thought of him as a nasty cop.

Anyhow, in afterglow of the warm rain of Sunday, I thought back to that day, lamented the long gone shellfish warden who, with the passage of time, has regained some of his mythical stature, and plotted out my scalloping strategy.

Part of that strategy, of course is to mislead everyone I know about where the scallops are and where they are not and how you find them, so take what comes hereafter with the proverbial grain of salt.

Clearly, if you find a trove of scallops, you don't want anyone to know where it is because then, the next time you go to that spot, the bottom, if you could see it, would look like Filene's Basement after a big sale - totally picked over and devoid of anything useful. On the other hand, if you are so inept with a push rake and site selection, that your bucket only has two animals in it after 90 minutes of worrying whether the water is going to lap over the top of your waders, then you certainly don't want anyone to know that either.

I stood on the beach surveying the water, looking for the tell-tale ripples (my way of identifying good spots) that might give away the location of some scallops. It was supposed to have been windy on Sunday with the passing of Kyle, but, somehow, the forecasters got that wrong. Still the waves were big enough that, if there were any scallop ripples, they were hard to see.

Someone else drove up, got out of his pickup truck and found his way down next to me on the sand.

"Wha dya think?" he said, after a few minutes of staring at the water.

"Rotten day," I replied. "We needed the rain," he said.

"Yuuuup," I answered.

More staring at the water. (Still no scallop ripples.)

Finally, "Don't know about this season," he said.

"What are you hearing?" I asked. "Not much." "Me neither."

"Ain't none out here," he said.

"Where do you usually go?" I asked.

"Here." Long pause. "But there ain't none out here?"

Another long pause.

Finally I blinked. "If there ain't none out here, are there any scallops anywhere?" It was more of a rhetorical question than anything, but to my surprise, he answered.

"Don't know," he said.

Realizing that this guy was not going to be forthcoming, I thought I would drop a nugget of information. "I hear there's a passel of them out by Tuckernuck this year."

"Tuckernuck?" My companion was (relatively) incredulous. "There ain't been none out there since the '40s."

"Well," I said slowly, "word has it that they are… eh …hip deep out there. Of course I wouldn't know. I don't have a boat to get myself there."

My new friend almost smiled. "No boat, hmmm. Too bad! Now that you mention it, I did hear sumpin 'bout there being some scallops out there. Too far for the push rakers to go I guess, anyway. Ain't none here though."

I almost thought I saw a scallop ripple. I was tempted to ask my friend how he was so sure that there weren't any scallops in the water in front of us, but I figured he wouldn't tell me. I certainly wasn't going to disagree with him.

"I have some friends who would take their boat to Tuckernuck for push raking if they thought they could get scallops there," I said.

"You do?" he asked, eyes wide. "Well, they better be careful if they do something foolish like that. You know, the weather out there can change in a minute and they could get swamped. Yea, they could take on water big time this time of year."

I looked at him skeptically. "Well, I suppose that's always a possibility," I said, "but they know what they are doing. And anyhow, if there is a problem, a bailout could probably be arranged."

He looked at me sharply. "Isn't that what they are talkin' about down there in D.C.?"

"It is." I acknowledged, "but being able to bailout swamped push rakers is a whole lot easier - and cheaper."

"Them's fools. And so are you. I suppose you will be wanting the Town to give you dry socks," he said as he turned and went back to his truck.

"Why not?" I said to no one in particular.

Then I knew that I saw scallop ripples, so I went home and got my push rake, waders and basket from the basement and polished them up. Mostly that involved insuring that there was enough air in the inner tube so that the basket wouldn't sink under the weight of all my scallops.

Undoubtedly, in the next few days you will see me in the water off Warren's Landing. Knowing that I always get skunked there, you will say to yourself, "He's a fool," and move on to greener waters.

The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any ideas or comments to drake@ nantucketindependent.com. I