Coastal Clamming

The ocean has been a bit lumpy and windy the last couple days so it was time to spend a little time on the gatherer side of the hunter/gatherer equation.

Started off the morning in the woods with some REAL EARY Chanterelles (earliest ever for me).  Then hit the mid day low tide for some gorgeous sunshine and some awesome clamming.  Limits of Cockles and a limit and a half of monster Gapers (blues) for my wife and I.

Nice work on the shrooms and clams

Cockles are one of the tastiest (and underrated) clams in the PNW IMO.

Can't say I'm a fan or eating them but Gapers make excellent crab bait! Their leathery siphons and low meat/shell weight ratio (i.e. really heavy shell) limit their commercial importance for eating. Do you like to eat gapers?

For bay clams, at the front of the list are Little necks (steamers) then either quohogs(butter clams) or Cockles and then Gapers and Softshells.  I like eating gapers, if you know how to clean/prep them there is a ton there.  It just takes a little extra time to blanch and peel the necks and clean trim the bodies.  I'd almost call it criminal to use gapers, at least the big ones for spider bait.  I turned yesterdays limits into tasty Thai/Viet style clam vegetable fritters that got eaten before the steam even had a chance to clear with no complaints

Well call me a criminal, I have some gapers in the freezer for crab bait. 

Those fritters sound delicious though.

Well call me a criminal, I have some gapers in the freezer for crab bait. 

Those fritters sound delicious though.

No worries, not saying its wrong, just not how I would utilize them.  I have lots of fresh rockfish and ling carks for spider bait, and would rather use the clams for food as rockfish cark fritters just don't sound as tasty