Back around 1990? we used to get them near Fort Myers. You could get them in waist deep water at low tide by wearing tube socks and dragging your feet thru the grass ( that way you don't step on a stingray) you would feel the scallops with your feet, then reach down to grab them. back then the limit was 5 gallons. A few times I saw people with a cooler in a intertube walking off the bank to catch scallops. We would usually be about 500 yards or more off shore in the grass flats. I would tie my 16ft jon boat to my waist and pull boat along as I picked up scallops, We put them on ice and would put them in a 5 gallon bucket to check to make sure we were not over limit after we caught a bunch. most of the time we would stop after 4 gallons since that was plenty. Then we would run over to some deep channels with rock piles on bottom, anchor up and start cleaning them with spoons, the shells and guts went over into the water and acted like chum..we would have a couple of rods with shrimp on bottom.. we would catch Mangrove snapper, Sheepshead, reds and other fish while cleaning the scallops. They closed the scallop season down there but I had already moved back to North Central Fl. I never scalloped anywhere else.