Here ya go:
Arrive at the beach 2 hours before posted low water. That will give you as a beginner (as well as your newbie friends and/or family) plenty of time to dig your limit before the tide starts flooding back in.
As you walk downhill (toward the water) you will notice a series of "lines" that form along the width of the beach. The first line I call the "scum line"... that's where the last high water deposited all the flotsam and scum fairly high on the beach. Keep walking downhill.
The next line you will encounter is the "shrimp line" (actually it's also the worm line). This is where you will see MANY small holes in the sand spaced perhaps just a few inches apart in the densest areas. The holes are small, perhaps 1/4 inch, typically slightly raised in the middle of a shallow cone that looks like a miniature volcano. The real shallow ones look like doughnuts. They look that way because the burrowing critter in the hole (either a sandshrimp or a worm) is depositing his dredge spoils at the top of the hole, kind of like a shallow mole mound in your lawn. THESE ARE NOT CLAM HOLES!. Keep walking downhill.
Eventually the shrimp holes thin out and you walk across a rather barren stretch of firmly packed sand with a rippled look caused by surface wave action. RED ALERT! Time to start looking for clams.
A clam hole is flush with the surface.... NO VOLCANO OR DOUGHNUT. A clam hole is simply a depression about the size of a thumb print. Yes many are smaller but they aren't worth digging over. Too much effort for too little yield, and the smaller clams are easily crushed by the compressive force of shifting sand while digging.... even when your shovel makes ZERO contact with the fragile clam.
The bigger the hole, the bigger the clam... if they aren't at least thumbprint size keep looking.
Sometimes they show great and other times they don't show worth a damn! Sometimes they need a little encouragement. As you slowly comb the beach, use the blunt end of your shovel to thump the sand.
All of a sudden, a clam will spook and show himself! This is what they look like:
Stick your shovel tip in the sand about 3-4 inches uphill of the show. Keep the blade absolutely vertical:
Shove the blade in as deep as it will go, maintaining an absolutely VERTICAL orientation. DO NOT DIRECT THE POINT DOWNHILL OR YOU WILL BISECT MR RAZOR!
Now push the shovel handle uphill very slighty, just enough to crack and shift the sand. DO NOT PRY THE HANDLE PAST VERTICAL OR YOU WILL BISECT MR RAZOR! It should look something like this:
As soon as the sand cracks, keep the shovel in a vertical attitude and lift the entire shovel straight up toward the sky, removing the shovelful of sand in a scraping motion against the downhill side of the hole.
DO NOT PRY! You are not digging a grave, nor are you scooping sugar from a bowl. Using a horizontal digging technique will create a HUGE wide hole requiring the removal of far too much sand for every inch of depth achieved. This horizontal technique will quickly wear you out because it is so extremely inefficient. It will also cause you to crack or sever 90-100% of your clams.
Imagine trying to dig a hole no bigger in diameter than your shovel is wide. Reach deep, then scrape the sand out in a vertical technique! Here's the second scoop.
The compressive force of the third scoop "pins" the clam against the downhill wall of the hole. You can see his siphon protruding. Note how I maintain a vertical attitude with the shovel. DO NOT PRY!
Now simply reach in and grab your prize!
Rinse away the excess sand and VOILA!
Repeat fourteen times and it should look something like this:
All the photos in this post were taken by my lovely daughter Jodi. And yes she got her limit, too!
. Only one other question about buying a clam shovel, is it ok if it's connected to a bobcat? :jester:. Thanks for the education eyefish, can't wait for the end of March, see about 6 straight days of minus tides during daylight.
