Table 5. — ^Age and size distribution of 

 sea scallops in commercial catches 

 from Passamaquoddy Bay, 1957-58 

 season 



based on extensive work with com- 

 mercial catches. Baird believes 

 that good survival of certain year 

 classes with intervening years of 

 poor year class survival combined 

 with drag selectivity "could well ac- 

 count for" the sudden appearance or 

 disappearance of scallop concentra- 



tions in areas of commercial opera- 

 tions. 



Comparison with Other Areas 



The scallop fishery of the Passa- 

 maquoddy area appears to be marginal 

 and at present could not support any 

 increase in fishing effort. Aging of 

 samples fronn the commercial catch 

 indicates more frequent year-class 

 failure in the Passamaquoddy areas 

 than in other commercially important 

 inshore areas. Figure 5 shows the 

 difference between size -class distri- 

 butions in the commercial catches 

 from Passamaquoddy Bay and Penob- 

 scot Bay. The same type of drag was 

 used to collect both samples, although 

 the two samplings were not done during 

 the same year. Growth rates for the 

 two areas appear to be approximately 

 the same. 



Figure 4.— Scallops tagged with plastic disks, a portion of nearly 2,000 similarly marked between December 1949 and June 



1951 in a migration study. 



