Digging Razor Clams in the Prince William Sound

So here’s a funny story without much content.  You know how is when you get some hair-brained scheme in your head and ignore absolutely every piece of advise and research that could possibly squash your hopes and dreams, so it was with the clams.  A little online research, of course, indicated that clamming season was “traditionally” during the summer, but open year round no permit required.  Now, having shared Laurel’s $36 razor clams at the Powder House a couple weeks back I’m thinking tasty free dinner that I get to catch myself.  What in the world are we waiting for the mud fields must be full of clams and this evening is the only expected negative tide with any light at all while we’re on the sound, the best possible conditions for catching clams per Google.  According to my research razor clams leave a dimple in the mud as they dig themselves several inches deep with their foot, yes, just one foot, apparently the clam’s lone, slimy appendage.  As was indicated, clams should not be too hard to “catch” as they are about my speed.  We set out on the mud flats.  The first little detail that I tucked away as we entered the mud flats was, as you can imagine, clams live in the mud exposed by the low tide on the bottom of the bay.  I don’t know if you have ever, or maybe let your dog slosh around in bay mud before or not, but it’s rather rank stuff.  But that’s okay, we’ll find the dimples and dig up the clams and have a fabulous supper.  So, I wonder what clam dimples look like?  Do you think they’re recessed or protruding?  Maybe that’s one there there ->  Nope, that’s a rock.  No, that’s a rock, too.  Oh, how ’bout this!  Also, a rock.  You know, it’s actually sort of hard to see what’s what on the mud flat in the six o’clock twilight.   After about a half an hour of this we finally decided on a protuberance that we felt might just be the home of the sought after razor clam and commenced digging with gloved hands.  Now I read that the razor clam can dig itself into the mud at the rate of half an inch per second.  Surely, we must be faster than the clam.  We have opposable thumbs and it has only one slimy foot.  Not so, after five minutes of our best efforts we had tunneled a mere two inches through the dense, cold mud finding only baby clams the size of penny gumballs at which time I promptly declared the clamming expedition is OVER!  Muddy and empty handed with a now stanky dog we hiked out of the mud flats and found something we could catch for supper, a pizza.  The moral the story is that the more details you disregard the funnier life will be.

Also, of interest:  RoboClam

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