Madaket Harbor Came Up Short on Opening Day. The Island's Scallop Shortage Is Somewhere Else.

"We barely got the bottom of the basket covered," Alison Taylor told The Inquirer and Mirror after about two hours in Madaket Harbor on the first morning of the recreational scallop season. Taylor lives in Madaket part-time and has gone recreational scalloping since she was a girl. She called it her worst start to a season in recent memory. "Last year was better, and last year wasn't good. But at least you got your limit."

For anyone who keeps a push rake by the door on the west end, that is the story of this fall so far. The larger story behind it is less about Madaket Harbor and more about who is still out on the water.

One Island, Two Opening Days

The paper's opening-day account split cleanly by geography. Madaket was "slim pickings, according to several people." At Pocomo Point, people pulled plenty of scallops from the floor of Nantucket Harbor. Scott Jube, an island resident and former commercial scalloper, answered "Enough for dinner" when asked how his Madaket stint went. He said he planned to send his daughter a picture of his quarter-bushel haul.

Over at Pocomo, Joanne Archer had her full limit in about an hour and a half. Her husband had already tried Madaket that morning, then drove across the island and got half a basket in 20 minutes. The Inquirer and Mirror's summary was blunt: "The bulk of them appear to be several miles away."

Taylor had hoped the previous weekend's nor'easter would push scallops closer to shore. She remembered a morning a couple of years ago, after a storm, when she filled her one-bushel limit in 45 minutes. This time she was left wondering where they had gone. No one has publicly explained this year's gap between the two harbors. What the season's opening shows is that scallops are concentrated in some places, not missing from the island.

The Number That Stopped Measuring Scallops

The town's harvest figures make that point more strongly than any single morning in waders.

The commercial season that ended March 31, 2026 came in at just under 7,500 bushels, according to Tara Riley, the town's shellfish and aquatic resource manager. That was about 25 percent below the 2024–2025 season, which topped 10,000 bushels for the first time in nearly a decade. A June retrospective in The Inquirer and Mirror put the same season at about 7,800 bushels. Riley measures against a 10-year average of about 7,800. By her measure, any season at 7,800 or above means the fishery is "maintaining and holding steady," which puts the March estimate a little short of that line.

Riley's explanation of the number is the part that changes how the whole season reads. She told The Inquirer and Mirror in March that the yearly bushel count depends more and more on how many fishermen are willing and able to go out, and less on how many scallops are on the harbor floor. About 10 boats fished the season's final day, out of 82 commercial bay scallop license holders.

"If the fishing effort goes down, the bushel count will probably go down, and I don't think it's reflective of the resource anymore that's out there."

Post-season abundance surveys over the past two years backed her up. "There's a lot that get left behind," Riley said. In March she also said fishermen were telling her the juvenile population remained strong, which she said bodes well for the November opening.

Weather took its share of the season too. A red flag goes up when air temperatures hit 28 degrees or below, and no one fishes that day. Riley estimated 15 to 20 days were lost that way during one of the harshest winters in recent memory. The town raised the daily limit from five bushels to six boxes per fisherman in late January, then to seven about a month later. The state bay scallop limit is 10 bushels a day. The Harbor and Shellfish Advisory Board spent the season debating whether Nantucket's long-standing five-bushel cap, set decades ago so the harbors would not be fished out by Christmas, has outlived its purpose now that only 10 to 20 boats fish all season.

Set against the fishery's own history, the drop in fishing effort stands out:

"Certainly we could handle double the amount of fishermen that are out there now," Riley said in June. "It's just a matter of who wants it."

Where the Bottleneck Actually Sits

The June feature traced why fewer people are taking her up on it. The obstacles come in order, each one waiting for anyone who clears the one before it.

1. The rig. "A boat and a trailer and the right equipment, that's 25 grand for a good setup," scalloper Jim Sjolund said, and that does not include fuel or maintenance. Dylan Wallace joined the fleet four years ago with a roughly $10,000 boat once used by longtime fisherman and former Downyflake owner Karsten Reinemo Jr. He put about $5,000 more into the engine and bartered scallops for much of his gear.
2. The bench. Board of Health rules require a three-bay sink, a sink with 180-degree water, refrigeration and a hand-washing station. That has made backyard shanties essentially extinct. A shanty Andy Lowell's father built off his garage in 1979 has sat dormant for years. Select Board member and scalloper Bob DeCosta's parents had one off Waydale Road that no longer takes scallopers because bringing it up to code cost too much. About half a dozen shanties remain. Sayle's and Nantucket Seafood run their own and buy from their regular fishermen. Wallace mostly inherited his spot at Ginger Andrews' independent shanty on Old North Wharf through his mentor, waterman Neil Cocker. "That space on the bench is kind of passed on," he said.
3. The openers. Lowell, who sits on the Nantucket Shellfish Association board and chairs the Harbor and Shellfish Advisory Board, opened scallops after school in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He sees few people looking for that work now. "The construction industry is so good. Nobody wants to go open scallops," DeCosta said.
4. The buyer. At points during the 2024–2025 season, local buyers offered $12 to $15 a pound at the low end while off-island buyers paid closer to $20 to $25. Several scallopers estimated that half the fleet or more now sells off-island. Wallace got his own wholesale license so he can sell directly to off-island restaurants.

All of this lands on a fleet that is getting older. "Most of us are over 50, some of us are over 60," said DeCosta, who is 67. He estimated no more than 10 or 12 fishermen in the fleet are under 50.

The Season Ahead From the West End

That changes how this fall's thin baskets in Madaket should be read. The recreational season has more than five months left. It runs through March 31, and Taylor's limit-in-45-minutes morning came after a storm, the kind of shift one weekend of weather can bring. The rules, as reported by The Inquirer and Mirror, are these:

• One bushel per week, per license, with no fishing on Mondays or Tuesdays.
• Permit buttons are sold at the Public Safety Facility on Fairgrounds Road and must be displayed. Residents pay $35 for the season. Non-residents pay $50 for one week or $125 for the season. Permits are free for anyone 60 and over.
• Only scallops with a clearly defined growth ring on the shell may be kept, and divers and snorkelers are encouraged to fly a dive flag.

This is general information, not legal advice. Shellfish rules can change during a season, so confirm current terms with the town before you go out.

The commercial boats come back on Nov. 1, a little more than a week after this post is published. Rules for that fishery are still under discussion. The Harbor and Shellfish Advisory Board's Sept. 1, 2026 agenda included a Natural Resources report, a bay scallop daily catch-reporting app, possible revisions to shellfish regulations and an item titled "Health of the Harbors." Town natural resources director Jeff Carlson has called the bay scallop fishery "one of the greatest living pieces of history that's still there." According to the town's own manager, the harbors could support twice as many fishermen as they have now.

On the west end, harbor life shapes what a place is worth as much as any finish or floor plan does. Jen Shalley Allen follows Madaket Harbor the way the scallopers follow it, season by season. If you own on the water out here and want to know how that shows up in value, Start the Conversation.