BigBendFishing.Net

Okay...give it up...whats the scalloping like in the Bay. Finally gonna go this weekend.

Went monday.....only got 2-3 gal., mostly S of BI. The weather ran us off sooner the we wanted, storms/light'n....Going back friday....I'll post a report afterwards.

South of BI take the channel headed approx southeasterly until it dead ends into the flats. This is where we found them last week. Good Luck

I camped there from the 4th thru 7th, went to the spots previously mentioned. It was harder to find a spot with any on the south side of the bay, but we heard reports from others that once they found em there, they did pretty well. There were very few people over there. Me and mojo went east from Eagle Harbor along the southern flats; he jumped in the water every couple hundred yards, and from eagle harbor to the shallow area around the lighthouse, we found a total of one, and decided to go back to BI where we'd found them on previous days. I got a little under 2 gallons total on the trip, and mojo got about 2/3 of that.

It's the worst scalloping I've ever seen in SJB personally, and St Marks right now is some of the best I've ever seen anywhere. After nearly burning my house down frying some up the other night, the ones from SM were meatier and actually even tasted better than the ones we got in SJB, which had a noticabley 'fishy' taste to them compared to the ones I got locally.

Hopefully you'll do better than we did, but I make opening week in SJB an annual vacation for 7 years running now, and this year was by FAR the worst it's ever been there in that time.

Thanks guys! Sounds pretty much like last year, except with fewer scallops. I do hate to hear the fish taste business though.

I've seen all of the reports about St. Marks, but I have a place at the Cape and my boat is sitting at the Cape, so I am going to the Cape this weekend. I am bringing my boat back this time, because I am going to take some Boy Scouts next weekend in the Keaton Beach area.

Ya'll have a great weekend!

Good luck man - the scallops from SJB were still good; they weren't fishy to a great extent, just compared to the ones I got in St Marks, which had absolutely zero fishy taste.

I posted something about this in another thread, but in case you missed it, there was one big pro for SJB, and that is in about 24 hours of time in the water scalloping on my vacation, I think only one boat underway got anywhere near us going faster than idle speed, and for the most part, everybody was giving everybody a wide berth. In St Marks, the water was deeper and I had to say a little prayer every time I came up that it wouldn't be into some a$$^%&%^'s prop.

Also, it's been a couple weeks now, but we talked to a lot of locals when we were there, and they reported that the area around the St Joe Marina was pretty good; I guess most of us out-of-towners skip that area. A guy that runs a little shaved ice stand over by the state park told us he lives by the Scallop Cove BP and bait shop (south side, somewhere beteween eagle harbor and light house area, closer to eagle) and that friends were walking/swimming out from behind there after work in the evenings and limiting fairly quickly. We went to that area, but the closest spot we tried was too far to swim from shore, so might check that area during high/medium tides, or walk it at low.

Mook! wrote:Good luck man - the scallops from SJB were still good; they weren't fishy to a great extent, just compared to the ones I got in St Marks, which had absolutely zero fishy taste.

I posted something about this in another thread, but in case you missed it, there was one big pro for SJB, and that is in about 24 hours of time in the water scalloping on my vacation, I think only one boat underway got anywhere near us going faster than idle speed, and for the most part, everybody was giving everybody a wide berth. In St Marks, the water was deeper and I had to say a little prayer every time I came up that it wouldn't be into some a$$^%&%^'s prop.

Also, it's been a couple weeks now, but we talked to a lot of locals when we were there, and they reported that the area around the St Joe Marina was pretty good; I guess most of us out-of-towners skip that area. A guy that runs a little shaved ice stand over by the state park told us he lives by the Scallop Cove BP and bait shop (south side, somewhere beteween eagle harbor and light house area, closer to eagle) and that friends were walking/swimming out from behind there after work in the evenings and limiting fairly quickly. We went to that area, but the closest spot we tried was too far to swim from shore, so might check that area during high/medium tides, or walk it at low.

I've never seen anyone looking around the marina, but I'll swing by there and check first thing on my way out tomorrow. If I don't see anything there, I'll swing out to the area behind the Scallop Cove. Thanks!

There are plenty of scallops to be had at St. Joe...if you go where everyone else goes then you will probably have a hard time finding them...think outside the box and you can fill a 5 gallon bucket in 10 minutes.

BTW $8.95 for a tub of sea scallops at the seafood market

Chalk wrote:There are plenty of scallops to be had at St. Joe...if you go where everyone else goes then you will probably have a hard time finding them...think outside the box and you can fill a 5 gallon bucket in 10 minutes.

BTW $8.95 for a tub of sea scallops at the seafood market

I could have saved a ton at the seafood market, but instead, what I got was priceless

I was out of the box with little luck but found some when I went to a suggest place only to find it was boat central.

You need to PM where to get all of the way out of the box