Sole of Discretion CIC - Scallop Dive Caught 200 G

Scallop
pecten maximus

Pan fried with a bit of lemon is often how scallops are served -the part we generally eat is the white adductor muscle which it uses to open and close it's shell and the orange (female) and creamy (male) roe. Scallops are bivalve (2 shell) molluscs which are widespread and common.
The main method of capture for King scallops is dredging and this is considered one of the most damaging methods of fishing. Our scallops are caught in two ways – either dive caught or through a limited 3 month season we buy Duchy scallops that are hand-dredged by highly restricted gear. Salcombe bay is open to scallop dredging for only 3 months of the year, the towed gear is much lighter than industrial dredgers, the gear doesn't have ‘claws’ which means it doesn’t break up the seabed, the fishing areas are highly restricted to avoid for example sea grass, the number of dredges is limited to 2 per side, the dredges must not exceed a metre in width, and the weight is limited as they have to be pulled up by hand!!

To help protect the species, our Duchy scallops are fished between December and March so the breeding season April to September is completely avoided. Our hand dived scallops are fished sporadically all year round, but as they are hand dived only the scallops that have reached sexual maturity are captured and they are well above the legal minimum landing size.