There may still be scads of scallops out in the deep blue sea but new regulations could chop the numbers of fishermen and the days they can chase them.
The New England Fishery Management Council met Nov. 17 to 19 in Rhode Island and finalized a suite of new rules that chop the days at sea for big trip boats from 37 to 29, and will also eventually reduce the share to the total scallop catch allotted to the small boats that sail from Cape Cod.
“[Small boats] received 10 percent of the overall quota with the understanding that as soon as the quota was implemented it would be 5 percent because that would lead to consolidation and boats would be left out of the fishery,” explained Tom Dempsey of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association. “That was agreed upon three years ago [in Amendment 11].”