The aims of the Lakes Entrance scallop work were threefold: to monitor the period and abundance of spat settlement at sites east and west of Lakes Entrance; to survey scallop grounds for the distribution and abundance of juvenile and commercial sized scallops; and to determine the growth rate of scallops off Lakes Entrance.

Spat collectors were set out to the east and west of Lakes Entrance from September 1986 to February 1987 and were retrieved from February to May 1987. All collectors contained spat of the commercial scallop (Pecten alba). The collectors set out to the west of Lakes Entrance collected the most spat.

Spatfall during the summer of 1985/6 resulted in a small scallop bed about 16 miles to the west of Lakes Entrance. In November 1986 the modal size of these scallops (measured as shell height) was 52 mm and had increased to 70 mm by May 1987; it was still 70 mm in June 1987. Between April 1987, when scallops were approaching fishable size, and June 1987, when the scallop season opened, the number of meats per kilo dropped from 175 to 126.