varnish clams

[h20dog]

ok boys and girls, i am posting my first message. i have been a watcher long enough.
i, like many others read the article a few weeks ago in the oregonian about the new breed of clam that has found it way to our shores via bilge water from ocean going ships called the purple varnish clam. i have some concerns. i took my family to the spot mentioned in the article and my two daughters and i dug like mad dogs for about 2 hours and bagged 42 of the little medallions. we brought them home in some nice clean bay water and let them sit for 24 hours so they would purge the sand from their system. got a springer the day before so thought we would make cioppino (im sure i speeled that wrong....its that fish soup stuff) and the first bite was like a mouthful of sand. second concern, in the process of cleaning these little gems we found a dozen little crabbies bout the size of my little fingernail. the article said these clams werent harming native species.
were these dungies??? should i send this info on to someone????who????how???? thanks for your time.

it aint the catchin....its the fishin!

[WaterDog]

Welcome to the board!

Nice moniker too. images/icons/rolleyes.gif images/icons/wink.gif

[h20dog]

pardon the similarity mr dog..has been my sign on for several years. thought it was cool when i saw a fellow dog on ifish.

[Killertraylor]

That's interesting. They didn't taste good huh? Those could be rock crabs - I'm not sure how you would tell when they are that small unless you had a biologist look at one. Were the crabs inside the clams? Do you think the clams ate them? Did the Oregonian say the varnish clams were edible? Sorry for all the questions - but I just find this very interesting!

[Salmonator]

Almost all of the gapers we dig at Newport have a small (up to thumbnail size) crab living in the shell with the clam. They do not resemble rocks or dungies at all but who knows...

[WaterDog]

Hey h20dog I'm just messin' with ya. images/icons/grin.gif

I guess I missed the news article. How big are these things? As for the little crabs were they purple? The kids and I find these little crabs in the rocks at Netarts along the road. I don't think they are rock crabs.

[rcl187]

ok, if these crabs are small whitish pink or clear and fairly round they are called pea crabs and live in a variety of clams like geoy ducks and horse clams. To the best of my the crab benifits because of the protection provided by the clams shell and the availability of food (they don't eat the clam just the stuff he eats) and the clam is both protected and cleaned by the crab. It is said that when a snail such as the Lewis moon snail or other types go to eat the clam the crab comes out and pinches the snail. This discourages the snail and he goes elsewhere. I'm not sure how well that theory is backed up but thats the the best I can do. As for eating the clams I would suggest purging them then splitting them in half and checking for crabs PRIOR TO COOKING odds are you will also find a small clear stick like thing-actually a worm. Not harmful but I find it hard to enjoy a clam when there's the possibilities of worms inside. If you want to eat whole clams and don't want to frighten your dinner guests then eat another type.

[fishuntr2]

I do a lot of clamming out of Coos Bay and those small crabs are common. I have had good luck cleaning clam sand by using bay water as you did. What I do is pull the clams out of the soak water after 1/2 day then put them in another bucket and slowly pour the bay water from the first bucket over them until I get close to the bottom of the water and then pour out the rest of the water with the sand and clam poop.This also probably adds oxygen to the water. I will repeat this process for several days.(I don't do this with gapers, just blues, butters,cockles,etc...) If a clam appears to be dead I toss it. I have been able to keep clams alive this way in 5-gal buckets for days as I will transport them back up to Vernonia where I can share with friends.

[Captain and Marie]

We've found the Varnish clams to be very good eating. I just steam them open in my steamer and if theres sand I will rinse them off first. Then have garlic butter melted in a small dish and dip the whole clams in the butter. Fantastic !

The clams are brownish in color.

I have some samples at my bait shop, if you'd like to see them.

If you do find small crabs inside just discard them. No harm done, that I know of.

The varnish clams are like a steamer clam.

The reason why they call them varnish is that the shell looks like its been varnished coated.

Very hard to find tho. I'll post a picture on my homestead web site for you to see.

Good luck,

Marie http://www.homestead.com/tillbait/business2.html images/icons/smile.gif

[Captain and Marie]

This is what I do for clams.

I use salt water from the ocean to purge my larger clams. I usually put wheatgerm in the water, so the clams will eat it. It naturally breads the clams from the inside.
And it forces out sand as they injest the wheatgerm. Very flavorful meat!

I use air bubblers to oxygenate the water so the clams won't die. I toss out clams that won't open up.

It usually takes 12 to 24 hours to purge them.

I like to steam them open then dip them in garlic butter.

Thanks for asking!
Marie images/icons/smile.gif

[Mr. Fisherman]

Hey Marie,

That sounds good.

A good friend of mine swears that putting a cup or so of corn meal into the salt water works great. They eat the corn meal and it pushes out the sand images/icons/smile.gif.

h2o dog, I wouldn't put salt water clams into fresh water. I don't think they would like it very much. Just plain old sea water. Careful not to get it too close to the drain pipe images/icons/wink.gif .

Good luck and good eatin'

[Fishhead]

A long time ago someone told me that bi-sodium of carbonate mixed in with the water will cause the clam to belch out the sand and not effect the taste. Has anyone else heard of this method?........Fishhead Vic images/icons/rolleyes.gif

[h20dog]

wow!!!! thanks all for the info. i talked to a friend at work from texas and he says when he purges crawdads and fresh water clams he uses salt water and thought that perhaps when purging salt water critters mabey a fresh water bath would work. whaddaya think?