The Dinghy Dock at Oriental NC: 2.06- Gathering molluscs

Fishermen gathering bivalve molluscs in the North River, Carteret County, NC

(Click on any image in this posting for full size... except the ducks)

The scallop fisheries of the NC Outer Banks and Core Sound were re-opened at the end of January this year, after three years of being closed due to low populations of the pricey bivalve.

While scalloping will be allowed in these NC inshore waterways through April, they may only be taken by hand, hand rakes, hand tongs, dip nets or scoops, but not by dredges, which can destroy wide swaths of the sea-grass beds on which the tenuous scallop population depends. (the guys in the center of the picture are using rakes, and I believe the guy in the lower right is using tongs)

Recreational fishers are limited to taking 1/2 bushel of scallops on Saturdays and Sundays, and commercial fishers up to 5 bushels on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Today is Friday, a commercial fisher scallop day, but ther are also numerous oyster beds in the area, so I'm not sure if these are commercial scallop fishers trying for their Friday 5 bushel limit, or if they are folks gathering oysters, or even clams. (Perhaps a friendly local fisherman might know and drop me a comment or an e-mail educating me on the topic)

[2.08.09 UPDATE: I have been reliably informed by a local commercial fisherman that North River, Carteret County, is a very popular spot for taking oysters and clams... it is supposed to be "silly" with oysters... I had actually noticed that oyster shells litter the shoreline and the little island in the photo above, and I did see bunches of oyster clusters during low tide... Also, rakes are apparently used for taking clams, while hand tongs are used for oysters.]

Whatever they are after, these guys are wading in water that was about 35 degrees Fahrenheit at the time this shot was taken...

Notice one guy in the upper left of the feature picture at the top of the posting is wearing a wet suit ... he is handing up his floating barrel (used to store the catch on ice) to a dry helper in a boat... there is another guy in a wet suit almost fully submerged behind another floating barrel to the right of the boat.

At least the air temperature was up to around 50 F., as opposed to the below/at/just above freezing temperatures of the past couple of days...

There was ice along parts of this shoreline at 8:00 a.m. when I first passed this spot, and nobody was out there then.

Pelicans join the party, perched on
a small islet in the North River

While in the area, I also used the 600 mm. set-up (described in "Technical Note," below) to add a couple of new birds (both are ducks) to my photographic life-list:

Redbreasted Merganser (mergus serrator)
(male, top: male & female, bottom):

American Widgeon (anas americana) (both male):

Technical Note on the headline photograph:
I am using a borrowed Canon Rebel XT1 with a Pentax 300 mm. f.4 lens, with a 2 X converter, for a total focal length of 600 mm.

I did not have a tripod with me, and the converter cuts down on the light intake, so I had to open the lens all the way and set the ISO at 1600 in order to get a fast enough shutter speed (at 1/1000) to get a fairly crisp shot with this long lens.

I therefore got more "noise" (anyone remember when we called it "grain"?) and less depth-of-field than I could have desired for this shot... The closest person in the feature picture at the top of this post is about 250 yards away, and the background shoreline is 1.4 miles away.

Here is where these fishermen were wading in the 1 to 4 foot waters: