Many of our summer-fishing “lobster boats” are turning into winter-fishing “scallop boats,” as you see from these images taken yesterday. That’s “Tarrfish,” above, having her mast and boom installed so that she can maneuver her “drag,” a metal-wood-and-rope dredge that sweeps the sea bottom for scallops.
Below, you’ll see “Dear Abbie:” in winter dress yesterday. She not only had her mast and boom up, she had her shelling hut installed behind her cabin. That temporary hut is a shelter from winter weather in which one or more crew members shucks out and sorts the adductor muscles of harvested scallops (the delicious “meat” clump that we eat).
The scallop-dragging season starts here in the first week of December; the season for hand-harvesting scallops by divers in underwater breathing equipment began in November. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 29, 2024.)