Preston Grandy of Garnish has been involved in the province’s scallop fishery for quite some time. He started off fishing for other people up until three years ago when he and his wife Tonia decided to enter the scallop fishery with their own vessel.
“He was tired of running other people’s boats for scallops,” Tonia said of her husband’s decision to start his fishing enterprise. “We had a scallop license along with lobster and a few other species, so we bought the longliner three years ago and geared her up for scallop fishing.”
Tonia said it made more sense to them that they run their boat.
“He already had the stress of running a fishing and scallop boat, he just needed the boat, so we bought one and named her ‘Just the Beginning’”, she said.
The couple, who in the past took part in a pilot program in dive harvesting of scallops, say there are benefits both for the harvester and the fishery.
“They’re doing no damage to the ecosystem, there’s less fuel (required)—there’s less wear and tear on the boat,” Tonia explained.
She also noted dive harvesting is a more selective process allowing only the removal of larger mature shellfish while leaving the young to mature and help extend the life of the scallop bed.
Grandy said there’s also benefits for harvesters who utilize divers.
“What we sell now is usually $12 a pound for dragged, but for dive harvested (scallops) we were getting $16, $18 and $20 a pound depending on the size of what they wanted, or how they wanted them,” she said. “When you look at a couple of extra dollars on every pound, that adds up in the long run.”
Preston said dive harvesting also cuts down on the amount of time they had to send on the water filling orders, which helped reduce the risk to them and their ship.
“You go out in short windows, you can (take) your time and get it filled before the wind, or anything else come up,” he explained.
Preston said now that they are back dragging scallops they are more at the mercy of the weather.
“Now this year with the way the weather (has) been, you get a 12-hour window," Preston explained. "If you got six hours of that steaming it only leaves you with six hours fishing — it don’t give you much time to work with, and then the wind can come up at any time and then you got to risk your life to get back out of it.”
Uncertainty
Preston and Tonia agree they had some frustrations with the scallop fishery, most recently with the delay in opening the season for commercial harvesters.
“This is a business, and no other business in the world would be able to survive and make money under the conditions that fishermen are expected to do it,” Tonia said.
She feels there is a lack of communication between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the fish harvesters of the province.
“We’re not given any notice as to what’s going on,” she said. “Things can be changed on us in the blink of an eye.
“We don’t know when we’re going to be able to fish, so we don’t know when our seasons are. It makes it very difficult to provide anybody with a stable product.”
The 3Ps commercial scallop fishery in Scallop Fishing Areas 10 (Placentia Bay) and SFA 11 (Fortune Bay) opened on Jan. 11, almost two weeks after the recreational fishery.
Tonia is of the opinion that harvesters involved in the commercial scallop should have more advance notice on the release of conditions for the commercial fishery.
“People are trying to get gear ready and be prepared — you can’t be prepared if you’re only given a minute’s notice to do so.”
