![]() In general, find a pair of necks barely rising about the sand at the low tide line. There probably are good videos for harvesting geoduck by shovel (instead of by commercial means which can involve diving gear and pressurized water hoses). If you see someone walking the sands with a large tube, they might be on a geoduck hunt. That’s a lot of time to grow a really big anchor. They dig down about three feet and can live for over a hundred years. Geoducks have somewhat larger shells than horse clams, but much longer necks and much longer lives. Digging for geoduck might just be ripe for a video because it is much more involved. You can dig for horse clams with a shovel. Call it a gooey-duck, and have a chance of finding something else to get tripped up on. Call it a geo-duck and locals will know you aren’t local. Geoduck is even more impressive and serves a double purpose. Follow their neck down to find them, but be prepared to dig because they live more than a foot into the sand. Horse clams get as large as some crabs, growing shells to more than half a foot across. The royalty of the local clam world may just be the horse and geoduck clams. Want to help eradicate an invasion species? Melt some butter, garlic, and salt together and eat your way through to helping the local seawater fauna. One of the consequences of globalization and marine traffic is introduced species. Butter clams are shallow, at least that’s where they live. Wander a beach and get to know which clams are poking their necks out of the sand.Ĭlams is a broad term that hides their diversity. Clams are as happy as clams can be, borrowing under pebble beaches or tideland sands. Oysters grow in beds, but not beds for humans to sleep on. Check driftwood, rocks, and now pilings for barnacles. Kick over rocks to find other clams.Īround Whidbey Island the shores host carpets of mussels, carpets that are hard to walk on. A definite bonus for the local environment and economy.The first nations didn’t wait for companies to come along. Shellfish filter sea water for their food, which also means they can clean it as they grow. The company is also known for clams and oysters because, why not? The Salish Sea supported the first nations for thousands of years. Maybe the only thing limiting them are cold packs and shipping times. The mussels are farmed (ranched?) from a network of rafts in Penn Cove, but they’re shipped far beyond the island. Their probably what the bold, blue and briny refer to. Penn Cove Shellfish is more popularly known for Penn Cove Mussels. Aren’t all festivals about more than one thing? In addition to being in the heart of downtown Coupeville where there’s already plenty of shopping and art, the festival is also a good excuse for cooking classes and demonstrations, tasting and eating, and of course, beer! The festival is about much more than mussels. The topic comes up because of an event that’s coming up, Musselfest, March 7&8 in Coupeville – “Bold, Briny and Blue”. Just make sure to wash off the mud from it and from you. Island shellfish hunters, however, get an amazing variety and supply of ultra-locally grown food. Their clothes are not going to be the next big fashion trend. Their special gear requires no camouflage. Videos of the hunt aren’t as dramatic as those for big game. They get no stuffed trophies to hang on the wall. A significant amount also is farmed in tidal flats around Puget Sound, where the clams start life in net-covered PVC tubes that are removed after the first year.Pity the wild hunter of shellfish. In the wild, geoducks are harvested individually by divers who use water jets to loosen the sand around the clams. Washington accounts for about half the world supply. Geoducks are found in harvestable quantities only in Washington’s Puget Sound and inland waters of British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. The clam is prized in Hong Kong, China and Japan, where it is considered a rare taste treat, eaten cooked in a Chinese hot pot or raw, sashimi style. The meaty siphon is the edible part of the bivalve, which can grow to a shell width of 7 inches and weighs an average of 2 1/4 pounds. ![]() Its name reportedly comes from the Nisqually Indian term “gwe-duk,” which means “dig deep.” The Chinese call it “elephant trunk clam,” descriptive of the enormous siphon extending from the large, oval shell. The geoduck (pronounced “gooey duck”) is the largest burrowing clam in the world and one of the longest-lived animals, sometimes living more than 100 years.
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