Coastal Foraging for the Red Lip Scallop | Catch n' Cook

What's going on, guys? Noah here. It's been a really hectic spring and I'm right now planning for a large canoe trip, which I'm leaving on in a few weeks. And I just needed to get away from it all for the night. So, I'm out here on the ocean doing an overnight camp and hopefully a catch and cook for my favorite seafood, the scallop, or the scolop as they say here. And I've already found a shell, which means we're in a good spot. And the plan tonight is to have a big elaborate dinner, which you guys will see in a bit. But first things first is I need to get in the water and see if I can find some scolops. To get to where I'm trying to go, I just had to cross a bay with 50 km headwinds. We're just stuff in a 17 ft boat by yourself. But the water looks super clear and that's why I'm out here. I'm expecting the water to still be really cold. The wet suit that I'm using is a 54 and that means it's a 5 mm thickness in the core and then in my limbs it's a 4 mm thickness. This is the same wet suit that I use surfing in the winter. Have it on backwards. Obviously, it's been a bit Guys, I'm so excited. I haven't snorkeled since last year. Going to a new spot, I'm always just a little hesitant, especially when I'm by myself. So, I just got to be a little careful out there, not drift too far out into sea. I just got laser eye surgery last week. And one of the things they said was, "Don't get any salt water in your eyeballs." So, here I am. [Music] Pretty [Music] quickly, I came across this Jonah crab. These are native to Nova Scotia along with the Atlantic rock crab. There's also this sea an enemy. Believe it or not, this is not a plant. It's a carnivorous invertebrate that eats plankton, which is similar to this northern sea star that presfish. [Music] This is an oyster. Unfortunately, there's no recreational license for these guys, which sucks. I'm noticing there's a pretty a pretty strong current here, which is a good sign for scolops. Scolops like gravel bottom with a little bit of current. [Music] Okay, I'm starting out at the lay of the land here. And a jellyfish floated by. This is a lion's mane jellyfish. And jellies have been around for 650 million years. bingo. Woohoo! [Music] I got one. Let's go. All right, now that I got one, I got my confidence. I know what I'm looking for. Sometimes they can be tucked away under the seagrass, but if you know what you're looking for, you can find them. [Music] I started noticing that I was surrounded by moon jellyfish. which are these small guys that don't have any tentacles. And then I came across it. The ultimate scallop bed. A lot of juveniles that were too small to harvest, but I'm telling you that they were everywhere. This guy was big enough, though. You can see three scallops and a special guest, a lobster. Another lion's mane jelly floated by. And this one had moon jellies stuck in his tentacles. Just going to grab one more before heading back to land. All right, this is pretty cool. This is like a full-on scallop bed. But it's not just scallops. There's so much other life down there. Typically, I got to go down like 20, 30 feet for scolops, but these aren't like more than 10 ft deep. Got more than I need. I'm not trying to get every scolop here. I'm trying to do this sustainably. I just want to get enough for tonight and then maybe take a few home for my friends and family. But yeah, this is great. This is a lot of fun. I love this stuff. All right, guys. Before we get too far into the day, I just want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor, which is Ankor Sollex. Anker Solex is a leader in power solutions. And for me, what I love about them is they make power banks and solar panels. And as you guys know, on my big trips, I rely on solar panels and these battery banks to charge my camera gear. But for today, they sent me the Everrost electric cooler version two. As you guys know, a cooler doesn't necessarily fit my lifestyle on backcountry canoe trips, but there's definitely a place for them in the outdoors. And I thought this trip would be a great opportunity to bring it out where there's no portageages and keep the scolops cold for when I take them back home. It has a rechargeable battery that's used to keep the cooler cool. This is a lot better than having ice which is always melting and you got to get you always got to keep picking it up. This is reusable. You can charge it by solar panel. You can charge it by plugging it into your wall. Very nifty. And it has a fan in there that allows for even distribution and quick cooling. I can go from 4°, which is the temperature of a fridge, all the way down to minus20. I'm not a very tech-savvy guy, so this is very simple for me. Other cool features, the handle can also be used as a chopping block. And it has these wheels that work decent enough. You can get through some decent terrain on them. Overall, it's a pretty nifty cooler. And if you guys want to check it out, there's a link in the description that you guys can click on. All right, guys. Back to the video. Look at this. Some of these might be a little too small. They need to be at least 10 cm in width. These are pretty much all like right on the dot, 10 cm. So, the way you shuck these is pretty simple. I don't know if it's called shucking, but essentially you have two sides. You have a flatter side and a more rounded side. It's much easier to get your knife in the flatter side. I like using a fililet knife. it's um a little more flexible and I can really get in there because as you'll see as soon as you go you try to poke in there, he'll want to close down. So, you got to act fast. You got to be quick. You want to get in there and go right for the muscle, which is the scallop of the part that we eat. And that allows you to jump in there. We have the row, the muscle, the poop sack, the eyeballs. Uh, I don't know exactly what this is out here, but this is how they sense the world around them. In some places, you can eat the row. In Nova Scotia, they recommend you don't because if there were biotoxins, and a lot of our coastline are off limits for shellfish because of waste and algae. So, let's say this scallop did have biotoxins, most of it would accumulate in the row with less in the muscle. So, they say don't eat the row. I have tried it before. It is delicious, but I don't make a habit of it. To get the muscle out, you pull all the other stuff off like a sock. Looks complicated, but all you got to do is get your knife and start just work it slowly. Just pull everything off. And look at this. It's actually quite satisfying seeing everything just come right off. And then from here, you just scrape it off the other side. Another cool thing is, see this red lip? That is this year's growth. So you could see how fast these things grow. So, this scolop is probably one, two, three, four, five years old. See how there's two different colors of row? Well, that has to do with the the um gender of the scolops. I don't know which is which, but that's another distinction between different types of scolops. It's just about that time, my boys and girls. Yeah, we're luxury camping today. We got a cooler. We got a chair. What do we got in the cooler? Oh, a crispy boy. And you guys know I like to pair my beers with what I'm doing. And this reflects what I'm having for dinner tonight. This is something I've seen on Outdoor Chef Life a lot. One of my favorite channels. If you guys haven't checked him out, man, Taku is a gem. But what I'm doing today is scallop poke bowls. I brought all the fixings and we're going to set it all up here on the beach. I'm just going to go ahead and get started with the marinade. I'm a little nervous about raw dogging these scallops with all the biotoxin talk around here. So, I'm just going to have five for dinner. The marinade is a mix of soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, and rice wine vinegar. What shall we do next? We got a carrot, cucumber, green onion. We have an avocado as well. Sriracha mayo. teriyaki. Hit it with some onions and bang it with some sesame seeds. Oh, look at that. This is crazy. Oh my goodness. This might be the freshest backcountry meal I've ever made. See how it tastes. Hey, cheers for joining me on this scallop poke bowl with carrots, cucumber, avocado, edamami beans, onion, sesame seeds. Go right in there for the scolops right away. Man, if this doesn't get me sick, this is unreal. The scolops have a sweet taste to it, so it compliments the saltiness of the soy sauce. and the fresh ingredients. I was just finishing eating there. It's just started raining. Now it's sunny again. Delicious dinner. Awesome spot. Man, I love coming out for these overnighters on the ocean. Feels good to look under the water, see what's down there. My tent's set up. I'm full. I've tried one fresh raw scolop before. I've never eaten six to the dome before. Hopefully that's not going to get me sick. Hopefully there's no biotoxins in there. But you know what? Was it worth it? I don't know. We'll see if that happens. But I'm trying to look into the future, which I shouldn't be. I should be present. Those are good scolops. They taste great. That means they're good. Damn. Okay, that's it. This is it. [Music] There's an owl across the way there. [Music] All right, just getting ready for bed. I want to do an overnight experiment with the cooler. I'm going to put it to minus 5 and I want to see if I can freeze the scallops at that temperature. and how the cooler lasts. It's 8:00 and I'm going to bed and I'm not guilty at all about it. Last couple nights I've been going to bed past midnight just because a lot of things have been going on and still getting up early. So, this is going to be a nice sleep. I need a good rest. And on that note, we'll see you guys tomorrow. I love my morning coffee. Last night I woke up to take a pee. It wasn't a sound. It was dead quiet. Not a bird, not a chirp. But as soon as that sun started to come up this morning, the sky just lit up and it's a symphony of sounds now. Really funky looking sunrise this morning. Just a red globe. Looks hazy. Looks like there's forest fires in the area. In Canada right now, forest fires have been wreaking havoc. That's one of the reasons why I decided not to have a fire on this trip. A couple Junes ago, we had a serious forest fire here in Nova Scotia, and it devastated a lot of our province. And since then, people have been very cautious for good reason with having fires in uh the drier months. All right, guys. Just packing up, ready to leave. Final test is to see how the cooler did with freezing the scolops. minus five. Still 55% battery left. Okay, so they're not totally frozen, but there's they're definitely iced and there's ice on the sides here. So, it's possible that this is user error and minus 5 isn't enough to freeze the sculps overnight. But the cooler stayed at -5 and has a 55% battery left, which is pretty good. All right, guys. That's a wrap. The wind's supposed to pick up again, and I want to get across this bay before that happens. Awesome overnighter scalloping in the ocean. One of my favorite things to do in the summer. If you like this type of content, and you want to see more, you should really check out this video. Or if you want to see something totally different, check this one out. Guys, thank you so much. We'll see you next time.