I Dig Razor Clams
Why drive all the way to the ocean just to dig clams when you can dig clams plus get oysters a lot closer to home?
This was my stock response for over twenty years and I didn’t realize until recently how much fun I was missing from employing my narrow minded outlook. Finally my buddy Emery’s persistence caught me in a weak willed moment and I surprised both of us by saying yes. The tides and season was right for a trip and one was scheduled for the following week. We selected a low tide that allowed for an outing during daylight hours and thus avoided the expense of an overnight stay.
Copalis Beach turned out to be only a 2-1/2 hour drive from Seattle and low tide was ideal at noon. Our adventure at least was going to be during the comfortable part of the day. We planned to arrive an hour before low tide, believing that this would give us plenty of time to get our 15 clam each limit. Our arrival was on schedule, but the digging, for us as novices, was a lot harder than we thought it might be.
My first surprise at the beach was how many people were there.
We were able to drive onto the beach with my normal passenger car and once there we could easily drive a few miles without fear of getting stuck. Cars and people were as far as we could see in either direction. A rough guess was a thousand people within our immediate eye sight. They were not all hard core diggers either. Kids played on the beach building sand castles plus uncovering beach creatures of all descriptions, while their parents looked for washed up treasures on the beach or fished the surf for perch. A few even took advantage of moderate wind to fly their kites. Most of the crowd however was here, like us, for the razor clams.
We were armed with both shovels and a traditional circular clam gun ($20-$30) that we could plunge into the sand over the neck of a razor clam. Both of us wore chest waders and rain gear to allow us to wade into the surf. The necks would expose themselves as little v’s when the preceding wave’s water began to recede over the sandy beach. Recognizing the necks over small pebbles was a skill that took some learning, as did placing the gun correctly over the clam so as not to break its shell during the process of plunging the gun. People around us seemed to be taking clams almost right away, but after nearly half an hour, Emery and I had only one between us.
Fortunately, as the tide began to get lower, more of the beach became exposed and it became easier for us to see clams.
Because we were digging at the surf line, we needed to react quickly once a clam neck was spotted as the next wave would cover it up and force us to begin a fresh search. Once the gun was lowered however, it could be held in place until the wave began to recede assuming we could stand the force of the wave. The gun full of sand would then be lifted and emptied, hopefully exposing a razor clam nestled in with the sand. All clams needed to be kept once dug, regardless of size or condition, especially if we broke their shell. Nets attached to our belts would hold our prized clams. As we got better at harvesting, our full nets could be shown off to novices who constantly kept arriving at the beach. Once we filled our limits and headed back to the car, we played the part of real experts and casually offered advice to those just starting. Amazing how our expert status could be achieved in just one outing.
Two and a half hours later, we began cleaning our clams, pounding them to tenderize, and then pan frying. Soon after I had my first bite of razor clam fresh from the beach, I was on the phone to Emery.
