that's consistent with my experience as well since 2001..... There are
still some seafood processing places that may have shell piles of
shallow water bivalves,e.g.  i still have success in the Chincoteague
area and further south within Virginia. But that's about it for me.
But they are nothing like the FL/NC piles of old.

On a similar theme i was in Maine last week trying during high tides
(mostly without success) to find shells on the ground around  the
thousands of lobster traps stored on dry land.  Fastidiously clean and
empty trapyards and docks have been the rule for many years.  I ran
into a couple of fishermen and asked them about that, and heard the
same reply twice "we dont want anything else in there harming the
lobsters". On this trip (similar to past efforts) I got lucky and ran
into two groups of traps where the fishermen apparently felt no such
compulsion, which helped offset the lack of success with the other 99%
of traps examined. Such collecting requires more patience and a lot
more luck than in the past.

On 6/24/18, Matt Blaine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> About ten years ago I wanted to get some Atlantic Scallop shells for my
> collection so I drove down to Chincoteague island where I knew that part of
> the Scallop fleet was docked. I managed to meet several of the boat
> Captains
> and got some shells that were still stuck in their nets. I asked about the
> old shell piles and was told that the new national fishing regulations
> prohibited boats from bringing the scallops to shore with their shells on
> them. They had to shuck the scallops at sea and were required to dump the
> shells back into the water before they returned to shore. That is the
> reason
> why there are no more active shell dumps.
>
>
>
>
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