Meet West Coast Wild Scallops’…

Melissa and Joel Collier, and their two children, Cora and Caleb who live in Courtenay, on Vancouver Island. Joel is a fourth-generation fisher and they harvest swimming scallops, spot prawns, and salmon—chinook, pink, coho, sockeye, chum—by troll.

What’s your favourite seafood fact?

Pink and spiny scallops, aka swimming scallops, actually swim.  All scallops swim but most just skirt along the ocean floor.  Swimming scallops earned their nickname because they swim up into the water column and they look like swimming Pac Man or chattering dentures! Scallops typically congregate and many divers have talked about swimming along when all of a sudden, the entire ocean floor appears to swim up and around them.

What’s the best thing about your job? 

Best office in the world.... most days!

What do you listen to at work?  

The sound of bells ringing. When the salmon hit our lines, the bells on the stay wires ring.

What’s the most important thing about sustainable harvesting for you?

Protection of the resource comes first.  We need fish to be fishers.  I want to fish tomorrow, next year, several years from now, and I want our kids to become fishers if they choose to.  They would be 5th generation fishers.

What should everyone know about scallops?

Scallops aren't just chunks of white meat floating around in the ocean! You would be surprised at how many people think that, but they come in a shell and there is more in there than just the white meat and it all tastes good.

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