Bass River Could Relaunch An Industry

In a pilot project, 100,000 tiny scallops have been released into the Bass River, with hopes the babies will multiply into several million individual mollusks.

Where can you fish for scallops on Cape Cod?

27 September 2024 – YARMOUTH, MA – Right now more than 100,000 baby scallops are eating, growing, and awaiting release in Bass River. In a pilot project, the Town of Yarmouth and the nonprofit Friends of Bass River along with the Scallop Bay Shellfish Company, based in Pocasset, MA, are eagerly watching the mollusks, moving them from Japanese lantern nets to bigger nets to give them growing space.

Bass River was not only once home to Massachusetts second biggest herring population, but was also a hotspot for scallop fishing. Rick Bishop, Executive Director of Friends of Bass River, who grew up along the shores of Bass River, remembers fishing for scallop in the 1980s with his dad. With no more than three drags, in those days a father and son filled the day’s fishing quota. 

Are there scallops in Bass River?

Bass River is the longest river on Cape Cod. It flows from freshwater streams in Yarmouth Port nine miles south to Nantucket Sound. In order to bring scallop fishing back to the river,  the Friends of Bass River and Town of Yarmouth plan to release between three and five million scallops every year. Right now,  they hope the pilot project will be successful with a high survival rate among the scallop seeds.

“My guess is the success rate to the release would be probably in 90 to 95,000,” said Jeff Lang, co-owner of Scallop Bay Shellfish Co. “How many make it once we let them go to them becoming breeding adults next year? That's the part I don't know about.”

Through a special article called The Shellfish Enhancement, the Town's natural resource division purchased the baby scallops for $3,500 and the Friends of Bass River purchased the Japanese lantern nets where the young scallops can grow without interference of predators until they're big enough to be released in November. The nets play the role that eel grass often does in scallop populations.

Do scallops filter nitrogen?

“We've looked at shellfish propagation in general as being a benefit to the overall health of our tributaries and abatements through water quality enhancement. But historically, culturally, to try to reestablish a scallop population in Bass River is very significant,” said Bill Bonnetti, Director of the Division of Natural Resources of the Town of Yarmouth. “It used to be thriving. We know that there's been a loss of habitat, a loss of eelgrass in Bass River, which is largely in part due to nitrogen loading through septic systems.”

The town is addressing the nitrogen through a wastewater program, and though the main goal of reintroducing scallops is to reinstate a thriving fishery, the mollusks will also help clean the water.

“The biggest thing from the data we've seen is the town could be doing is the wastewater plan, but the shellfish propagation is a supplemental approach to improving degraded water quality. Besides that, if scallops survive here and are able to spawn and we have a sustainable wild population of scallops in Bass River. Again, that's culturally significant. It's what Bass River was known for a long time ago. That's important to the town,” added Bonnetti.

Rick Bishop pointed out that scallops are the top performer at filtering nitrogen out of water; quahogs are second and oysters are third.

When can scallops be harvested in Bass River?

Even with the eelgrass gone, scallops can adapt, and the Japanese lantern nets act as substitutes for the protective eelgrass, acting as hatchery in its place. By November, if all goes well, the Bass River will see adult scallops for the first time in 50 years. Scallops have a life space of about two years, so those new adults will quickly begin producing the next generation of baby scallops ... and be table ready themselves.

“I was told that in November they will be large enough for me to to have a little sample of them to eat them,” said Bishop, adding that it will take another year before they can be harvested recreationally.

“It's the second most common question I'm asked as executive director for Friends of Bass River. The first is, when will the river be dredged? And second is when will scallops reappear in the river?” says Bishop. “So we'll have an answer for them, which is fantastic.”