Digging for clams on the Jersey Shore
When you find one, you’re sure to find more. No, not roaches. Clams. In shallow, sometimes reedy bay water, you walk like a duck through a mud and sand mixture until you feel something hard underfoot. It could be a rock or it could be a root. But if God wills it, it will be a clam. You dig down, sometimes six inches into the muck. If, at bottom, there appears a hardshell clam (M. mercenaria) — with a white-gray-beige shell striated and sometimes mottled — then chances are there are more about. Many more. This past Fourth of July a team of us set out in three boats from the top of New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay. The first spot proved a bust, yielding fewer than 10 clams among more than a dozen clammers. We upped anchor and spun around to another site.
