The one harvestyou snorkel for.
Bay scallop season opens along Florida's Big Bend in July: a mask, a mesh bag, seagrass shallows, and the closest thing the gulf has to an Easter hunt.
[ mask, mesh bag, july. that is the kit. ]
The short version
Each summer Florida opens a recreational bay scallop season along the Big Bend, the seagrass coast that begins a morning's drive north of the Tampa Bay beaches: Homosassa, Crystal River, Steinhatchee. The gear is a snorkel, a mask and a mesh bag; the water is waist-to-shoulder deep seagrass; the work is drifting behind the boat picking blue-eyed shells off the grass like fruit. Charters run daily in season, clean the catch at the dock, and the limit is generous enough that dinner is assumed.
What bay scallop season is
North of the beach towns, the gulf changes character: the barrier islands run out, the water goes shin-deep for a mile, and the bottom turns to seagrass meadow. That is scallop country. From July into September, on stretches of the Big Bend coast, anyone with a license or a charter seat can drift the grass flats and collect bay scallops by hand, following their rows of improbable blue eyes.
It is the most cheerfully unserious thing the gulf does. Children are good at it, adults are competitive about it, and the boat rides home smelling of sunscreen and outboard with everyone comparing bags. The scallops are small, sweet, and best the same evening, barely cooked.
Doing it from the beach towns
From Anna Maria or the Pinellas beaches, the scallop grounds are a day trip: north by car to Crystal River or Homosassa, onto a charter by mid-morning, back on your own porch for dinner. The charters supply the gear and the local knowledge; the concierge supplies the charter, the cooler, and the kitchen that knows what is coming back.
Go on a weekday if the dates allow it. Opening weekends draw every boat trailer in three counties, and the flats are big but the ramps are not.
Tell us the dates and the party, and the concierge will line up the charter, the licenses, and a kitchen ready for the catch.
Plan a scallop dayA day on the flats,arranged around the tide.
Tell us the dates and the party, and the concierge will line up the charter, the licenses, and a kitchen ready for the catch.
Plan a scallop day