NEW PORT RICHEY — About a half-dozen children paddled kayaks 15 minutes offshore, pulled on masks and fins and dropped into 4 to 5 feet of water off Robert K. Rees Memorial Park. One surfaced from a dive with a question:
“Is there Wi-Fi out here?”
All Chloe Carter could do was smile and shake her head as the camper handed over a scallop, which Carter dropped into a bucket with the rest of the morning’s haul.
Carter, a senior program specialist with the Pasco County Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department, was one of two guides leading the group of Coastal Explorers, campers in the county’s three-day Scalloping Mini Camps. The camps ran through July, ahead of the Aug. 13 start of the school year, and are a summer-only addition to the parks department’s Exploring the Waterways program. They are timed to Pasco’s recreational bay scallop season, which runs through Aug. 18.
“Obviously, we want this to be educational, as well as fun — in the end, they’re out on the water and not some classroom, learning about scallops and other wildlife and environmental facts,” said Sydney Henderson, a fellow senior program specialist who led the campers onto the water with Carter. “There are worse ways to spend your summer break, but still learning.”
The season draws crowds along the Gulf Coast, though the state does not track or publish how many scallops are harvested each year, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Recreational harvesters are limited to 2 gallons of whole bay scallops in the shell, or 1 pint of shucked meat, per person per day. Vessels are capped at 10 gallons in the shell or a half-gallon — 4 pints — of shucked meat per day, and the vessel limit does not allow anyone to exceed a personal bag limit. Commercial harvesting is prohibited.
The campers were able to take home the scallops they collected.
Outside scallop season, Coastal Explorers kayak rivers and coastal waters across the county, including at Key Vista Nature Park in Holiday and Withlacoochee River Park in Dade City, Henderson said. The children who sign up, she said, tend to want something other than a typical summer camp.
“That’s why they’re explorers, right?” Henderson said. “They’re adventurous and curious.”
Pasco scallop season
The 2026 recreational bay scallop season in Pasco County is open through Aug. 18. It covers all state waters south of the Hernando-Pasco county line and north of the Anclote Key Lighthouse in northern Pinellas County, including all waters of the Anclote River.
For more information, visit myfwc.com/news/all-news/bay-scallops-0726.