Vineyard consumers are enjoying the lowest retail prices on bay scallops in at least ten years thanks to a renewed abundance of the tasty bivalve on Nantucket.
The Nantucket resurgence has been pushing down wholesale as well as retail prices on both Islands.
At Menemsha Seafood in Chilmark, owner Stanley Larsen said the retail price for bay scallops is around $16. His cousin, Louis Larsen of the Net Result, a fish market in Vineyard Haven, said the retail price is about the same at his store.
Vineyard commercial fishermen are coming out ahead in a price war over bay scallops.
Yesterday, Island commercial bay scallop fishermen received as much as $15 a pound, while their counterparts on Nantucket were paid only $11 a pound.
Consumers on both Islands yesterday were paying essentially the same price, around $18 a pound. In Orleans, the price was $29.99 a pound.
The Vineyard and Nantucket still have viable bay scallops fisheries, though Cape Cod does have pockets of success.
Three years ago, the Nantucket bay scallop harvest suddenly more than doubled in size, from around 15,000 bushels to more than 32,000. It was the year the industry ate its future.
The following season the harvest crashed. The total catch in 2005-06 was one-sixth as large — just 5,500 bushels. It was even worse last season, when fewer than 4,000 bushels were hauled up, the lowest tally since they began keeping records 30 years earlier.
By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL
Already this fall one Island angler has won a brand-new pickup truck for a huge striped bass he caught and the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby isn’t over yet.
That’s because he caught it in a different contest.
Morgan Taylor, 24, of Edgartown last week won the Angler of the Year Award in the annual Striper Cup, sponsored and run by the monthly publication On the Water. Mr. Taylor won the award for a 52-pound striped bass he caught from the shore way back in June.
On Wednesday morning, under a warm sun and blue sky, David and Karen
Berube were out on Cape Pogue Pond, at it again.
Lagoon Pond has millions of baby bay scallops. On Tuesday afternoon,
David Grunden, shellfish constable for Oak Bluffs, was out moving some
of them around. There is a gold mine of baby bay scallops out there.
While this doesn't help the fishermen of today, it may be a sign
of a good year to follow.
