One seafood I really enjoy are razor clams, and they are always best when you harvest your own. It requires heading to the beach about 2 hours before low water. Oregon has a more liberal season than Washington state so it was off to Oregon this morning. I left at 4:15 am and was back by 9 am after a 3 hour round trip, so only spent about an hour hunting up the elusive razors.
First a look at required equipment.
Clockwise from the orange rain coat. We picked up a pair at a local garage sale which give us the right seafaring “look”. More importantly they help to shed water (rain and/or surf).
Web belt- any belt will do but it can get covered in saltwater. This was another garage sale find. The belt goes around the chest waders to keep the ocean out in case of getting bowled over by a sneaker wave. You can also hang your clam bag (plastic bag in my case) off the belt.
Chest waders. These are cheapies I bought hoping they will last for several clamming trips. They have stocking feet so you need trashed sneakers or in my case cheap aqua socks. I stayed dry this morning so I’m calling it a successful purchase. People can wear hip boots but you need to wear rain pants over them to keep the ocean out.
The clam shovel is another important piece of gear. I only use long-handle shovels.
They sell short handle ones and you get a stiff back bent over pounding the sand looking for a clam show. A clam “show” occurs when the shovel handle thumping into the sand startles a nearby clam and it withdraws it’s neck, leaving a dime-sized indentation. People will also use clam guns, a cylindrical tube which are near useless in my book and scream tourist.
I went without my partner this morning as it was a dark-o-clock event and I wanted to check out the scene before I asked her to get all wet and cold. It’s one thing to get wet and cold and clams, but it’s no fun if the clams are elusive. Turns out it was good for me to check things out as the clams were tough to find this morning and wouldn’t have been a good learning trip. Better tides (lower and later) are coming up in a couple weeks and we’ll both hit the sand.
A limit is the first 15 you dig and I was fortunate that we’ll have a good dinner tonight. I’ll let Tammy talk about the prep work.
They were delicious! Totally worth all the hubabaloo.
I always thought that telling somebody to pound sand was a bad thing, but if they get clams when they’re done….
Only among the clamming community is it a reason to get excited.