Illustration by Jane La 



The calico, bay and Atlantic deep-sea scallop, drawn about half their adult sizes 



When the Carolina crews blow in, watch out 



If there's a bonanza in fishing along 

 the East and Gulf coasts, whether it be 

 in scallops, shrimp or fish, then you 

 can bet your last dollar that North 

 Carolina fishermen are there. Charac- 

 terized as opportunists, they seem 

 always to be aboard when the ship 

 comes in. 



But to be an opportunist in the 

 fishing industry you have to be good at 

 what you do and versatile at the same 

 time. "They're always a force," says 

 John Maiolo. "Whenever something 

 happens the North Carolinians get in 

 there and they seem to outfish 

 everybody. They fish the pants off 

 people. They work harder. The labor is 

 a little bit less expensive. They make 

 more sacrifices. 



"And they're so flexible. They say 

 OK, New Bedford is down, shrimp 

 aren't so hot, so let's go knock the hell 

 out of calicoes in Florida. They're 

 remarkable. These are the guys willing 

 to live on their boats, not in fancy 

 motels. They're willing to defer a lot of 

 gratifications. They're hard-working, 

 honkey-tonk-loving sons-of-guns. And 

 they're really neat people." 



Today the bonanza is calico scallops 

 and North Carolina fishermen have 

 swarmed the Cape Canaveral docks, 

 making up about half of the 100-plus 

 boats in the Florida scallop fleet. But 

 not so long ago it was the New 



"/ watched sea scallops go from a bonanza to 

 an empty shell. By the time we left it wasn 't 

 worthwhile to be there." 



—Ron Tillett 



England sea scallop they were after. 



Fishing the waters off the Georges 

 Bank, Tar Heel fishermen stocked 

 their boats with sea scallops and re- 

 turned home to sell them to North 

 Carolina processors. As stocks 

 declined, New England fishermen be- 

 came more and more angry about the 

 intrusion from their southern counter- 

 parts. New Englanders began clamor- 

 ing to their fishery management coun- 

 cil to regulate the fishery. They 

 wanted a 30-meat-count (30 meats per 

 pound) limit set for the sea scallops. 



North Carolina fishermen felt the 

 lower meat count favored the New 

 Englanders' dredge/shuck-at-sea 

 fishing methods. They turned to the 

 South Atlantic Fisheries Management 

 Council for help. In a study funded by 



UNC Sea Grant, Maiolo found that 

 many smaller boats from this state and 

 most of the shoreside personnel (hand 

 shuckers) would be pushed out of the 

 industry if the 30-meat count were 

 adopted. 



But while the councils haggled over 

 the management of the fishery, sea 

 scallop stocks continued to dwindle. "I 

 watched them (sea scallops) go from a 

 bonanza to an empty shell," says Ron 

 Tillett, a Wanchese fisherman. "By 

 the time we left it wasn't worthwhile 

 to be there." 



As North Carolina fishermen hit a 

 dead end with sea scallops, news of 

 large calico beds in Florida began to 

 filter back to North Carolina. 



"We kept hearing little pieces of in- 

 formation about these scallop beds in 



