The Maine scallop season got underway for a few fishermen Friday, with a larger opening coming on Monday.
Maine Department of Marine Resources spokesman Jeff Nichols says Friday was the first day for scallop divers. Draggers will be able to go out Monday.
“It’s somewhere around 30 divers total. It’s a little more than 30 and the exact number of draggers, I’m not sure. I believe it’s somewhere in the 300-400 range,” he says.
Nichols says, while the season is scheduled to go into April, for the past few years certain areas have been closed when 30-40 percent of the volume of legal-size scallops have been harvested. DMR says the trigger has been shown to allow the resource to regenerate sufficiently to ensure a future commercial harvest.
