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Clamming & Crabbing Report

Hit the east side of Oak Bay during the recent minus tides as part of my Cascadia Big Fishing Year (www.bigfishingyear.net). We camped Ft. Flager which itself produced many large Purple Varnish Clams as well keeper Red Rocks and Dungies from the boat dock.

I had never clammed Oak Bay but it was one of the few areas not under a WA DOH advisory so we spent most of our time here in the morning on the -2' tides. Butters and Pacific Gapers were abundant in the upper intertidal zone where there is mixed cobble/sand. It made for tough digging but the clams were all shallow (< 1'). Sizable Native Littlneck were also fairly common here but were patchily distributed. Lower down in the sand/sea grass zones we found very large numbers of massive Fat Gapers which were buried 2-3' deep and were a chore to extract (about 7-10 minutes/clam). However, they are very large and produce a significant amount of meat from their neck. We easily limited out each day on gapers and would process the clams at the fish cleaning station at Ft. Flagler each evening. While not our primary objective crab raking for Red Rocks was very productive in the grass beds with many large Red Rocks available to choose from.

A major target of this trip was geoduck which was a species that alluded us last year at Duckabush. Only as the tide came in on our next to last day did I spot one which I immediately flagged. The next day we returned to dig the geoduck out. Our excitement grew as the flags emerged from the water. To my surprise there was absolutely no sign of a geoduck there other than the presence of my flags. Only when I poked the area with my finger did it retract its neck and reveal its presence. I didn't know they could be so cryptic! Working with my wife we spent 45 minutes digging out the geoduck which turned out to be almost 5.5 ft underground. It was exhausting!!! We felt so triumphant when we finally extracted it. A major accomplishment in my book of things to do in Cascadia.

Here is a little and hopefully entertaining video of our geoduck dig.

kodacachers

7/17/2014 1:09:00 PM

Love it! (and will cross geoduck off my list of things to try for--too much work).

Gringo Pescador

7/17/2014 2:20:00 PM

Great video, but I'm with you koda, my wife dug clams for the 1st time last year, now wants to try for geoduck. I am going to show her this in hopes it will change her mind.

BentRod

7/17/2014 9:16:00 PM

Loved it! I think one has had to have dug a geoduc to fully appreciate the humor of that video. Great production and great job on the prize!

afk

7/18/2014 7:14:00 AM

Great teamwork in the video! Such vibrant color in the pics. Thank you for sharing

OGFboat

7/18/2014 10:34:00 AM

I admire the work you put in. I dug them once, but a different way. I'd been told that if you dig (carefully) parallel to the neck down a couple of feet, then over to the neck and grab it, you can dig them out without the duck digging away. I tried it and it worked! You do have to HOLD ON TIGHT, but we dug several in less than an hour..... Might be worth a try next time?

uplandsandpiper

7/18/2014 9:09:00 PM

Thanks for all the positive comments folks.

OGFboat - Older mature geoducks like the one we dig no longer have the capability to dig any deeper. They actually lose their digging foot when they mature. We had a hold of the neck most the time but you can't lift them out by the neck and its possible to tear the neck. You have to free the shell and this just happened to be a very deep geoduck. I hear on the private clam beds and those public clam beds accessible only by boat its a lot easier to find geoduck and they tend to be shallower as well.

Kaptain King

7/21/2014 9:35:00 AM

Great report. I love the pictures you shot. That one of the crab is super cool and I like the one where the clam is part way open so you can see inside. Super colors and great eye! Thanks for posting them.

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