Here you see a frequent sight at Naskeag Harbor: A fishing vessel being cleaned up after a morning of dragging for scallops, while the first herring gull is arriving to get some scallop “guts” that might be thrown overboard:
Scallop fishermen shuck the abductor muscles out of the mollusks and sort them for sale; the other parts of the animals – the shells and “guts” (stomach, gills, nerves, testicles, ganglia, etc.) – are thrown back into the sea. What retail stores advertise as “scallops” (and what we eat) really are just the muscles that the complex scallops use to open and close their shells.
By the way, when asked this week how the scallop season was going, a senior Captain texted with usual Maine succinctness: “The season has been ok.” I interpret that as not good, not bad, but acceptable for a very specialized, often hard, and sometimes risky occupation. He also stated that the fishermen “have all been hoping that the [scallop per-pound] price would go up a little.” If it does, that might make the season improve in the fishermen’s opinions from okay to good, but not great. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 25, 2024.) Click on the image to enlarge it.