November 17, 2016 – Can You Dig Faster Than a Clam?

Since hitting the Oregon and Washington coasts Denis wanted to go clamming, specifically for Razor clams, but the beaches were closed to clamming due to a toxin outbreak in 2015. The departments of fish and game were testing almost daily because the toxins were almost gone and people were chomping at the bit to go get the clams. FINALLY, on Tuesday, November 15^th they announced a stretch of beach by Ocean Shores, WA would open for clamming on November 17 for 4 days. We were all excited about this, changed our whole plan for Olympic National Park and drove straight to Ocean Shores finding about the last RV camping spot because everyone was converging on the clams.

We geared up with mucking boots, headlamps (you can only clam on the evening low tide), buckets, nets and clamming guns. We got there for the first night of clamming, ahead of most of the crowd. In Washington you can drive out on the beaches and with the super low tide there was lots of beach to park on. Not being familiar with the beach, much less in the dark, we played sheep and followed the rest of the cars and parked with them. The clamming area was about a football field length away from where the cars were parking. Once we got to the clamming area and looked back where we thought our car was, you could see nothing as it was a pitch-black starless and moonless night. Our salvation was that the seasoned clammers put flashing lights on their dash to serve as a beacon. We shamelessly used their beacon.

The girls and Denis all got clamming permits. I served as hunter, spotter and bucket brigade. Each clammer could harvest 15 clams. For harvesting we chose to use clamming guns. These “guns” are made of glued together pieces of PVC piping. The tube that gets pushed into the sand is a length of 4” dia. PVC pipe. The business end that goes into the sand is open, while the human end is capped and a “T” handle is attached to the cap to twist and push the tube into the sand. The cap has one ¼” hole drilled through it to let air out when pushed into the sand. To get the sand to stay in the tube as it is pulled out, you seal the hole with your finger. When the gun is free of the beach you take your finger off the hole and the sand falls out, and hopefully a clam. This Pinterest-worthy contraption is highly effective at sand sucking and allows the clammer to dig down faster than the razor clam. Next we all sat around the laptop and watched Youtube how-to videos on clamming.

We’re not sure if it was dumb luck, dumb clams or a Pinterest invention that really works, but our team had their limit of clams in under two hours. We found our truck and headed back to strut up to the fish cleaning station in the campground to clean our catch.