FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 75, NO. 2 



Bermuda and possibly Delaware Bay (Waller 

 1969; Allen and Costello 1972), only three areas 

 produce calico scallops of commercially harvest- 

 able quantities: North Carolina, Cape Canaveral 

 off eastern Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico off 

 Apalachicola Bay, Fla. (Drummond 1969; Cum- 

 mins 1971; E. Willis pers. commun.). Throughout 

 its range it has been found in depths of 2-370 m 

 (Waller 1969). Off North Carolina, calico scallops 

 occur at open water depths of 13-94 m (Cummins 

 et al. 1962; Bullis and Thompson 1965; Porter 

 1971, 1972a; Allen and Costello 1972). 



Until recently, North Carolina calico scallops 

 were hand shucked by shore-based operations 

 (Cummins 1971). In 1970, two shucking machines 

 (Webb and Thomas 1968) were introduced in 

 North Carolina and by 1975 there were eight. The 

 present North Carolina and Florida fisheries pre- 

 fer this shucking method rather than utilizing 

 offshore vessels equipped with machine shuckers, 

 as was briefly used off Florida (Allen and Costello 

 1972). Generally, commercial fishing is considered 

 feasible when 20 bushels (in shell) are caught per 

 hour with shell diameter of at least 40 mm 

 (Drummond 1969). Meat size to be acceptable to 

 hand shucking should be 190 meats/kg or 90 

 meats/pound (Cummins 1971). Machine processed 

 meats can be as small as 495 meats/kg (225 

 meats/pound). 



Off North Carolina, the high cost of hand shuck- 

 ing and the early lack of knowledge concerning a 

 possible calico scallop fishery delayed its develop- 

 ment (Chestnut 1951). The fishery seems to have 



begun in 1959 and has since been described by 

 Cummins et al. (1962), Cummins (1971), Porter 

 (1971, 1972a), and Porter and Wolfe (1972). At 

 first scallop dredges were used to harvest calico 

 scallops. Today, otter trawls are the gear used by 

 the commercial fishery (Rivers 1962). Short tows 

 of 10-15 min often land 60 or more bushels, with 

 an average day's catch being 800-1,500 bushels 

 of shell stock. 



STUDY AREA 



Cummins et al. ( 1962) characterized the princi- 

 pal North Carolina calico scallop grounds as an 

 elliptical shaped bed 16 km long near Cape Look- 

 out, with several lesser beds located in 19-37 m 

 depths northeast and southeast of the Cape. The 

 major North Carolina calico scallop fishery in 

 1971 was located southeast of Cape Lookout; a 

 small bed southeast of the Cape was also fished 

 briefly in September of that year. Exploratory ef- 

 forts in 1972 by the commercial fleet and the RV 

 Dan Moore on the beds southwest of New River 

 and northeast of Cape Lookout (Figure 1) failed to 

 locate commercial quantities of calico scallops. 

 The only beds that supported the 1972 fleet of 13 

 vessels from February to October were located 

 16-24 km south of Beaufort, N.C., producing some 

 1 million pounds of meats (Table 2). 



The 1972 study area consisted of the above beds 

 located at lat. 33°35'N between long. 76°35' and 

 76°55'W (Figure 2). Depths were 20-25 m and most 

 sampling occurred inside the 28-m contour. 



10 jo 



lOMitlll 



78°00 



428 



77°00 



FIGURE l.— North Carolina calico scal- 

 lop fishing grounds. Dots refer to areas 

 of poor catch by commercial fishermen 

 during the 1972 season. Dashed lines 

 indicate exploratory trips by one or 

 more trawlers. Solid line refers to the 

 area contained in Figure 2. Dotted line 

 indicates 20-fathom (36.6-m) contour. 



