This experience happened several years ago, but I was reminded of it yesterday while camping with the scouts on Lopez Island, so I decided to write it down.
A couple of years ago we bought some crab pots. I have never been much of a fisherman because my brother, Brett, got all the fishing genes in the family. But crab pots are different than fishing. You just put some salmon, chicken or turkey in the pot and throw it over the pier. Pull it up every 30 minutes or so, and you will have crab in the pot. You do have to check to make sure they are at least 6.25” and male, but that is easy. And to cook crab you just boil them. It is so simple. No tying knots or flies, no tangled line, no fish hooks stuck in your shirt of fingers. And crab tastes better than trout. So a few years ago we took up crabbing.
One beautiful morning Alex and I got up early and headed up to the fishing pier in Blaine – right on the border. We had all our crab pots and it was the first day of the season. We figured that we would get there first and catch our limit of six crabs each. We were therefore sadly disappointed to discover that the pier was closed, and that there was still one week until opening day.
What to do? We had gotten up early and we were so excited to bring home some crab for the family that if we returned home with nothing we would never live down the disgrace and failure. I had heard that there was a beach where you could dig clams, so we stopped at a hardware store and bought a shovel, and drove to Birch Bay. Some parts of the beach had people on them but we found a place where we had the whole beach to ourselves, and we walked out and started digging. There were clams everywhere!
After gathering about 40 clams we walked back to the car, but as we did so we noticed a sign which read:
Warning: Biohazard – Beach Closed To Shellfish Harvesting
Once again were had been foiled. We could imagine the icy reception we would receive if we returned home with nothing, and Julia’s parting words: “Either return home with a bucket of Crab or don’t ever bother coming back.”
What now? We drove farther down the beach and we saw many people with buckets way out in a very low tide. Surely, this beach must be safe. We grabbed our shovel and bucket and headed for the water. I had heard that you could find a clam by stepping near a hole and looking for a squirt. Sure enough, we found some holes and some squirts, but every time we dug down over the hole the clam got away. We tried this several times with no success and I was beginning to think nasty things about Brett, who must have gotten all the clamming genes in the family too.
We were getting pretty tired and discouraged digging when we noticed an old lady with a baseball cap throwing large pieces of clam to the seagulls. She had a bucket and a shovel and seemed to know what she was doing, so we went over to watch and hopefully get some advice.
I explained that this was our first day digging clams, and asked for a few pointers. The lady was about 70 years old and had a big bucket full of clams and seemed to be enjoying herself out on the beach. She said she had already gotten her limit and would be happy to help us. She showed us a good clam hole and told us to start digging. We started digging right over the hole and lost the clam. “No”, she said, grabbing the shovel out of my hand. “This is how you go after your horse clams”. She then quickly removed several dump truck sized scoops of sand from around the clam hole, being careful not to disturb the hole itself. Then with a deft little jump and a twist of her shovel she threw a softball-sized horse clam up on the beach. Alex and I just stared at it dumbfounded. We had never seen a clam that big, and we had no idea what to do with it. Before we could speak, the old lady had picked it up and whipped out her knife. “Now, slide the blade in here and cut the muscle that holds the shell closed," she said as the shell popped open. “Be sure to cut out the scallop and cut this nice muscle off the back,” she said as she ripped the guts from the long neck and threw it over her shoulder to a waiting seagull. She then showed us how to slice the neck lengthwise and peel off the outer skin, leaving a large flat clam steak. “That’s the best part” she said. “I like to marinate mine and grill them, and sometimes I make clam strips.” She then explained how to make the breading and gave us several other recipes from memory. She talked about how she had been coming to this beach for many years and how she had a whole freezer full of clam steaks and chopped pieces for chowder.
Alex and I thanked her and with her new technique and several corrections we dug up our limit of horse clams. We also dug a few steamers and headed home triumphant. Alex and I sat out on the lawn and cleaned our clams and talked about what a great adventure we had. JB was not as impressed with our catch as if it had been crabs, but after she tasted the clam strips I made according to the old lady’s recipe she was converted. Later that night, after we had put the kids to bed I found Alex sneaking down stairs for a midnight snack. He had discovered that you could put a clam in the microwave and that after about 30 seconds it would pop open all ready to eat with a dash of salt and a little dab of butter. He had a clam in each hand and when I told him to go back to bed and looked at me with those sad puppy dog blue eyes and said, “Come on Dad, just one more. Please?”
