Torpedo stern FV Tatiana in the foreground. The multi-year effort to restore the Maine scallop resource is paying off. When introduced, the monitored harvest closures and moving to new locations put fishermen at odds with the plan. The harvest limits have allowed more areas to recover and harvest volume continues to rise. Peter Ralston photo www.ralstongallery.com.
Scallop Lottery Gives Four Winners a ‘Golden Opportunity’
by Sarah Craighead Dedmon
Maine is welcoming new faces to the scallop fishery for the first time in 10 years.
Four men who entered the state’s first scallop license lottery received a phone call from the Maine Department of Resources (DMR) last month saying they had won the grand prize — the opportunity to become licensed scallop fishermen.
“I was absolutely shocked, to be honest, and that’s an understatement. As a fishermen if you get a call from the DMR it’s usually not good news,” said Matthew Alley, a lobsterman on Beals Island. “I was on cloud nine, and I really still am.”
Alley started lobstering when he was eight years old, and by the time he graduated high school he was fully licensed. His parents encouraged him to attend college, so he earned a four-year degree at Husson University and moved straight back to Beals to resume lobster fishing year round. Alley is a sixth-generation fisherman, and his family runs a lobster pound.
“I was really fortunate that my Dad got me involved in the industry at a very young age, so if I chose not to go to school I could go fish my full 800 traps,” said Alley. “Now it’s hard to get a lobster license, but I was in the apprentice program.”
The last new licenses issued in the scallop fishery went out in 2008 at a time when landings were on a steep downward
