Digging for Razor Clams on the Pacific Coast

Another culinary adventure… I couldn’t have chosen a better day to come down here to Cape Disappointment. When I first got here with my clam gun locked and loaded, I had some time to kill before I could check in to my hotel and hit the beach at the right tide. Low tide is at 4:30 and sunset is about an hour after. It’s rare this time is year to have an evening negative tide that’s before sunset, perfect conditions to dig razor clams.

In the meantime I went looking for a place to put my crab pots in. In Puget Sound crab season is over, but out here crabs are more abundant. You can crab most of the year, and take more crabs and smaller crabs. Neither the lady at the information center nor the park ranger knew where to crab, but after climbing the jetty I found a fisherman who told me to try the boat launch. He was actually crabbing using a “crab snare” on the end of a giant fishing pole, a technique I’d never heard of. Although Cape Disappointment disappointed me on crabbing, I came here for the clams. At the boat launch I threw my pot in and chatted with a deckhand at a crab boat docked at the next pier. He offered me some free bait that he was going to toss overboard, but I had to decline because I didn’t really have time to use it. I wasn’t surprised that I came up empty; I think fishing from a boat will be much more productive.

I know I look kinda goofy with my rubber boots, clam net, clam gun, and badly clashing colors. I had fun though. I caught my first clam within minutes; it was just as easy as it looked on YouTube. As I approached my limit of 15 though, the tide was coming in, it was getting darker, and I was getting hungrier. I gave up at 14 and called it good.

I didn’t quite realize that I’d be driving on the actual beach. My “go anywhere” Subaru did great on the soft sand, but it’s actually kind of hard to find your way back to the gate after dark. There’s few landmarks on the big open beach. I’m cleaning my catch now. This is what I came here to learn. I’ll probably eat half and freeze half.

And now, the reward for the day’s work. I had never actually tried razor clams before. It took me about an hour to clean all of them because I’m new at it. This hotel has a special clam cleaning room, because they don’t want people leaving shells and guts that could stink up the rooms. I was grouchy because it was kind of cold, I was hungry, and I had my hands in cold water that whole time. Some other guests said though that most hotels make you clean them outside.

I decided to try two different kinds of fish fry mixes, as well as a plain one so that I knew what it tasted like. Then I fried them all in oil. I decided I liked the Louisiana style. The classic is basically just cornmeal. The Louisiana one has some salt, garlic, lemon, and other spices. I didn’t want to overwhelm the clam’s flavor, but it was very subtle and yet complimented it. The clam itself has a delicate flavor. It didn’t taste fishy to me at all. It reminded me a bit of calamari. I can see why people are so crazy about them. It goes well with a lager. After my experiment, I fried up several more for my own consumption, and I’m freezing the rest in water to prevent freezer burn. I hope they come out okay after the long trip home in my boat cooler. I’ll top off the ice in the morning.