Contents to Sections Below Individuals Clamming - Western NA Individuals Clamming - Eastern NA Clamming Books Cookbooks Recipes Educational Institutions Media Pictures Government & Trade Groups Equipment Tide Charts Now in Archive.org

Commission received if you click, then put an item in cart and buy.

Individuals Clamming - Western North America A nicely done YouTube video on Clamming in Alaska June 2008. After this, YouTube will, of course, offer you many more clam videos to watch. Digging Clams has some advice and pictures of digging for clams in Puget Sound. Razor Clams: Digging, Cleaning & Cooking has some pictures of people digging in North Cove and Grayland, Washington State. Clam Digging on the Kenai Peninsula is a site from Alaska. Starts with a picture of a couple razor clams, an intro, then tabs at the bottom take you to the other sections. In Clam Digging Margaret Doran tells the story of the day she and her boyfriend went digging for clams. Tutka Bay Taxi: Clamming and Collecting. Various shellfish can be gathered in the Tutka Bay/Sadie Cove area. Bob's Piscatorial Pursuits charter / guide service offer clamming trips to their clients to the Kenai Peninsula. See: Ninilchik & Clam Gulch, Alaska Razor Clam. Has pictures, info and tide tables. Scroll down (along left) for links to How To pages, like How to Clean Razor Clams. Coast beaches opening to clam digging is a newspaper report on the upcoming 8-day razor clam digging season on Long Beach Peninsula in Washington State. Also see Digging for razor clams is a coastal tradition that takes skill. The Pismo Clam of Pismo Beach is one of the largest types of clams found along the California Coast. Page by Pismo Beach. Oysters & geoducks & clams, oh my! is reporting that shellfish season lures legions of diggers to the Puget Sound tideflats. Uncle Mike's Guide to the Real Oregon Coast by Michael Burgess has Clam Digging which notes that "It's not, to begin with, even vaguely romantic." In December 1999 a news release Agency hopes to open 3 ocean beaches to razor clam digging in December from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Individuals Clamming - Eastern North America Go to Top Jack Cloutier, clam digger is an example of local ways of living that still persist in the Greater Portland area of Maine. The Barnstable Natural Resources Division offers several useful pages, including regulations, how to use a guage, guide to shellfishing, shellfishing maps. and videos.

Books	Go to Top

To open a book in a new tab (easier for comparisons) hold down the Ctrl key when you click the link.

Stalking The Blue-Eyed Scallop by Euell Gibbons. This foraging and cooking classic was first published in 1964 and has continued ever since to be one of Americans most appreciated works on the subject of edibles that abound in and around tidal areas. A delightful book on the immense variety of foods which can be gathered by the ocean's edge. It has hundreds of recipes for both commonplace and exotic "fruits of the sea". Not all are easy to find. The book has line-drawn illustrations.

The Compleat Clammer, Revised by Christopher Reaske covers how to gather and prepare clams, oysters, mussels and scallops, for seaside foragers and food lovers on all coasts. The book presents details on the equipment needed and biological information. More detail on the author is in a Boston U press release: Summer Fun on the Half-Shell [that is now in archive.org]. The single review gives it a 5.

Clams: How to Find, Catch, and Cook Them by Curtis J. Badger is a practical, illustrated how to book that describes the best ways to clam, including where to find the creatures, what equipment to use, and how to collect and cook them with dozens of tasty clam recipes included. The author, a veteran clammer along Virginia's clam rich Eastern Shore, also examines the natural history of clams and answers frequently asked questions about them. [Kindle edition available.]

Shells and Shellfish of the Pacific Northwest: A Field Guide by Rick M. Harbo. This comprehensive field guide covers more than 250 species of mollusks - clams, oysters, scallops, chitons and more - whose range extends from Alaska to B.C. to Washington, Oregon and California. All species are depicted in color photographs, with corresponding descriptions of habits, habitat, physical features, abundance, etc. The single review gives it a 5.

The following books are not shipped by Amazon:

Evergreen Pacific Shellfish Guide by J.D. Wade. The book covers Washington and Oregon States and is noted for its maps showing harvest areas. Identifies different varieties of clams. Has tips, including how to "shuck" an oyster. Some recipes. Discover the best time of year to harvest Mediterranean mussels. Has illustrations and color photos.

Edible? Incredible! by Marjorie Furlong & Virginia Pill. Each double page spread has color photographs of various species of edible seashore life, faced with a page of text describing what they are, where to find them, and how to prepare and cook them. Includes crabs, mussels, limpets, abalone, snails, clams, and much more. [Description from pamphlet.]

Secrets of Shellfishing by Edward R. Ricciuti. A little book that will get you started. It lists the tools you need and a lot of helpful hints.

The Clammer (1906). Pictorial green cover with gold lettering. Well, there was a copy when I added this link, but then someone from here bought it.

Clamming on the Coos by Kathleen P Yusko. No product description or reviews at Amazon.

A Recreational Guide to Oystering, Clamming, Shrimping & Crabbing in South Carolina by Charles J. Moore. Contents: Blue Crabs, Cooking and Cleaning Blue Crabs, Shrimp, Identifying South Carolina Shrimp, Throwing a Cast Net, Oysters, Clams, Key to State Shellfish and Public Oyster Grounds, Locator Map of State Shellfish and Public Oyster Grounds, State Shellfish and Public Oyster Ground MAPS, Regulations pertaining to Taking of Shellfish for Personal Consumption in South Carolina. There was a copy when I added this link, but then someone from here bought it.

Sunset Beachcomber's Guide to the Pacific Coast: Tidepools, Clamming by Bob, Ed Thompson. No product description or reviews at Amazon.

A Guide to Recreational Clamming: Keyholing by North Carolina Sea Grant describes several recreational clamming techniques and explains in detail "keyholing," recognizing the unique holes left in the sand by clams as they filter water. Clam recipes are included. A black and white spiral reprint. See publisher's page, where it can purchased for less. Here's a PDF on the web.

A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America by Rowan Jacobsen. This book is incredibly well written, witty at times and very informative. You can learn how oysters are farmed and their various techniques, like how they get to harden those shells. The book has a flawless 5 star rating at Amazon.

The Summer Shack Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Shore Food by Jasper White. This is only partly a clam cookbook, but the cover does feature a clam steamer and the book gets a flawlless 5 star rating at Amazon.

Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover's World Tour by Robb Walsh chronicles a five-year global culinary road trip that takes Walsh from his local Galveston Bay to the coasts of North America, and off to Ireland, England, and France. Fact-filled and laced throughout with his wry humor, Walsh recounts the hundreds of oysters shucked and prepared in myriad ways, and offers a fascinating history that goes beyond the expected, revealing coastal rivalries, recipes, shucking tips, and what to drink with your oyster. The Amazon reviews average to 5 stars. [Picture is of hard cover edition, this link is to the new paperback edition.]

Consider the Oyster: A Shucker's Field Guide by Patrick McMurray. The author one of the world's elite competitive oyster shuckers, he operates an oyster bar in Toronto, he grow oysters, he writes about oysters with passion and joy. He weaves together anecdotes with practical information on everything from opening oysters with finesse (and a minimum of personal injury!) to planning an oyster party, finding the best oyster bars and ordering hard-to-get bivalves on the Internet. Color photographs. The single Amazon review gives it five stars. [Picture is of hard cover edition, this link is to the bargain edition.]

The New England Clam Shack Cookbook: 2nd Edition Completely updated with new restaurants and travel plans for eating around New England by Brooke Dojny. Covers clam shack traditions with nearly 100 recipes gathered from the region's best casual seafood eateries. Here are all New England classic seafood preparations, from clam chowder to lazy man's lobster. All the sides and sweets are here too, as well as the names and addresses of more than 100 eateries, plus three regional weekend itineraries for the true clam shack devotee. The few reviews do give it a perfect 5 rating.

The following books are not shipped by Amazon:

The New England Clam Shack Cookbook: Favorite Recipes from Clam Shacks, Lobster Pounds & Chowder Houses by Brooke Dojny. The book is a travel guide for seafood lovers touring the Northeast while simultaneously offering recipes. The book also offers tips on how to eat lobster, shuck oysters, dig clams and fillet a fish. This older edition is plentiful on the used market and evenly sells with the 2nd Edition.

• Epicurious Food Dictionary's clam page has info on many of the edible clams in North America.
• Ruth Burkhardt has a soup recipe web site. The Chowders page has some that are clam-based.
• How To Have A Traditional clam Bake is a basic page on cooking in a pit dug in the sand.
• The Beercook web site has a recipe for Clam Chili with Bock Beer.

• Many papers were written with funding from the NOAA Sea Grant. PDFs of them are on the web in the National Sea Grant Library (NSGL)
  • A Guide to Recreational Clamming: Keyholing. Tourist oriented. Covers North Carolina.
  • Alaska clam poster. Has drawings of 12 types of clams with information as to distribution, size, and identification.
  • Breaking into Bivalves. Covers shucking oysters, clams and scallops.
  • Clam Recipes From Around The United States. Has clams in chowders, on the half shell, roasted, stuffed, deviled, and pickled.
  • Gathering Safe Shellfish in Washington: Avoiding Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning. August 1989.
  • Gathering Safe Shellfish in Washington: Avoiding Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning. 1994.
  • How to make a clam shell fly... A short story from Maine.
  • How to Shuck a Hard Clam With Ease... From New Jersey. Includes recipe for Atlantic City Steamed Clams.
  • Oregon's Captivating Clams. A six page flyer from about 1987.
  • The Hard Clam. Five pages on what you need to know for recreational clamming in Delaware.
• Clams and Mussels has some information on the life cycle of these mollusks.

• Clamming in Scarborough is a video clip from the Portland Press Herald. A commercial clammer takes a reporter out to a deserted beach to dig for clams.
• The Alaska Outdoor Journal has Clam Digging on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. This is very detailed on how to dig for razor clams.
• Clean clams Douse, douse, snip, snip by Judith Blake is an article from The Seattle Times on what to do with your bucket of razor clams.
• Oysters & geoducks & clams, oh my! is an article on how shellfish season lures legions of diggers to the Puget Sound tideflats.
• The Seattle Times has The Geoduck Chronicles -- How an obscure bivalve became the object of international desire, a long article on the world's biggest burrowing clam and how it has become desirable in Asia.
• A map of the Top shellfish areas around Seattle. Clams and oysters get unique codes.
• A Vancouver classified ads website has a couple articles of interest to us here: From the Booklocker: The Joy of Oysters is a detailed book review. And Galleyman: Tasty Clam Chowders has several recipes.
• Clamming on the Oregon Coast is from The South Coast Recreation Guide. It pictures and discusses Horseneck Clams (Gaper Clams).

• You can do a Google image search on Razor Clams and get 100s of images.
• See some Alaska razor clams nearly as big as your hand! Plus it's 60 razors per day.
• Oyster Rake closeup. In addition to gathering oysters from the river beds, it can be used for digging bar clams which were buried beneath the sand.

• The Washington State Department of Fishing & Wildlife highlights razor clams on their home page. They have many pages. Some selected ones are:
  • Map of Razor Clam Beaches
  • Razor Clams: Introduction & Licensing
  • How Many Razor Clams Are There?
  • Recreational Razor Clam Fishery
  • How to Dig Razor Clams: Using a clam shovel...
  • How to Dig Razor Clams: Using a clam tube...
  • How to Prevent Wastage
  • How to Clean Razor Clams
  • Razor Clam Recipes
  • How Recreational Razor Clam Seasons are Set
  • Puget Sound Clam and Oyster FAQ
  • Harvest Rules for clams, oysters and other species at State Parks
  • Harvest Rules for clams, oysters and other species on public tidelands OTHER than State Park beaches
  • Hardshell Clams
  • Oysters
• King County in Washington State put up Beach Assessment Clam Identification Key. Has information with many pictures on how to tell types of clams apart. At the bottom is a link to an abbreviated version.
• The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has a page for shellfish licenses and regulations.
• The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has Rare Mussels and Clams. See pictures of many. They also have a Summary of Clamming Regulations for Wisconsin Waters.
• The Maine Shellfish Officers Association has 24 chapters on Maine State Regulations Pertaining to Shellfish Harvesting, Handling, and Culturing.
• The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries has Recreational Shellfish Regulations. How to measure is at the bottom of the page.
• The Rhode Island Marine Fisheries has Rules and Regulations: Governing the Taking, Possession, Holding, Bartering and Trading of Shellfish and Shellfish Buyer's License - Statutes.
• The Connecticut Department of Agriculture has a Connecticut Shellfish Industry Profile and Shellfish Requirements for the commercial industry.
• In NY the Town of Southampton has Shellfish: General Information, Seasonal Closure Maps and Permit Information.
• In NJ there is a Bureau of Shellfisheries which directs shellfish programs and projects. They are described here. On another page is Shellfish License Information.
• Clams gets into the buying, handling, storage tips and nutritional information.
• The National Shellfisheries Association has a site. See Web Resources and Shellfish Forum.

• Killer Clam Rakes makes custom clam rakes out of stainless steel. It was developed after many years of frustration using store bought rakes.
• Oxo Good Grips Clam Knife ships from Amazon. A good item to use as filler to get up to the free shipping threshold.
• If you want a more traditional clam or oyster knife in a choice of sizes and metals, see R. Murphy Knives's store page.
• The Clam Out Equipment Co. in Pennsylvannia has clam rakes, knives, gloves, baskets, and kitchen items. Products are sold retail in nearby coastal states, or by mail for people further away.
• The R.A. Ribb Company in Massachusetts has a line of Recreational Rakes, some of which are for clams.

• The Biological Sciences Department at the University of South Carolina has put up the WWW Tide and Current Predictor. Pick any place in the world for predictions for the next two days. Or use options to adjust dates.
• The NOAA has a site on Tide Data. There is a list of station locations with graphs of the current and upcoming tides. Or pop up a map to find the station nearest to your interest.
• The Massachusetts Marine Trades Association has Massachusetts Tide Charts. Includes printable charts for select locations for the next six months.
• Roy McMorran has Interactive Tide Chart for locations in the Northeast. Input future dates and it creates a table.

• In Clean clams? Douse, douse, snip, snip Linda Ferrier, a lifelong razor-clam digger, shares some of her tips.
• A resort in Westport, Washington has a small page Clam Digging Clams - - Can you dig 'em?. Tells of each year thousands of people come to Washington's Pacific coast beaches in search of clams. [-->To see this page you have to type Ctrl-A.]
• Razor clam, clam digging and PSP is about clam digging in Alaska. Also has some precautions on Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP).
• Oregon State University has Information on digging for Eastern softshell clams. Softshells are a tasty little imported clam that hitch-hiked to the Oregon coastal bays late in the 19th century.
• Clamming 101: How beginners can get quahogs out of the water and onto a dinner plate is a good place to start. Includes a picture of a rake.
• Clam diggers move to ban clam divers is a report about a petition signed by 65 Waldoboro (Maine) diggers asking for an immediate stop to the practice of digging clams using scuba equipment. Here's a followup story: Scuba clammers worry the others.
• All About CLAMS... covers the clam's life cycle all the way to storage and cleaning.
• Methods of Clamming has pictures showing the four ways (tonging, scratch raking, treading, raking) and the tools used for each. More interesting than a lot of the other pages. The same author also put up Methods of Oystering.
• Pacific Coast Clams is a page from a Coloring Book.
• Razor clam and Native American clamming basket..
• Mom and Dad Clam Digging in Washington 1981 has example of clam digging tubes. Scroll down for picture.
• Mid-Atlantic Foods has Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Clams!. Covers harvest area, species, harvesting, processing, and more.
• Lummi Indian Nation Shellfish Operations in Bellingham, WA sells clams and oysters and seed.
• Clam Pouches is a recipe with clams and other ingredients wrapped in foil and then backed. From the Savoir Faire television series.
• The Food Science department at Oregon State University has a page on Clam, Food Resource. There are excerpts from a couple of publications and a picture of three men digging in the sand.
• The Wiscasset Newspaper (in Maine) published 'Expert' Clammer Offers Tips For Seaside Gleaners, an interview with Dr. Reaske.
• The Cape Cod Times published Shell Game: Clamming brings fresh seafood to the surface in 2000. This is a story of a novice clammer and what she and her daughters learned.
• Let's go... Clamming is a basic introduction with pictures. Put up by Rashomon.
• Northwest Clamming. Has some basic information and notes that along the Washington and Oregon Coast line you will find six common clams: the butter, cockle, horse or gaper, and the geoduck, littleneck, and the razor. Unfortunately the pictures don't come up. There is also a New England Clam Chowder Recipe.
• Around Maine put up Clamming in Scarborough, Maine. It discusses clamming on the various conservation sites. Mostly on commercial clamming.

Return to Foraging page

The URL of this page is: http://foraging.com/clamming/ Last updated: 01-Jun-10, 08:47 CDT Webmaster: Don Wiss [Home]

Commission received if you click,   then put an item in cart and buy.