Before I dug my hands into the wet sand at Reid State Park on a recent morning, I had never actually eaten a clam.
I’ve not lived in the midcoast — let alone Maine — for long, and hadn’t had the opportunity yet. But I was attending an introduction to clam digging put on by the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust. In one respect, the event turned out to be a success: I extracted several bivalves from the sand.
Embarrassingly, though, I still haven’t managed to eat a clam. We’ll get to that later.
Generally speaking, soft-shell clams are a big deal in Maine.
Wabanaki tribal members have used the mollusks for food, trade and other purposes for millenia. Since the state issued its first licenses in 1947, the fishery has continued to grow, with soft-shell clams tying with baby eels as Maine’s second-most valuable behind lobster in 2019 and now contributing two-thirds of the total national landings.
To encourage people to learn what it’s like to find them, the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust hosted the training session earlier this month.
Armed with bags, pails, small trowels, rakes and other tools, a group of 70 participants that included locals and tourists made the quick trek from the parking lot of Half Mile Beach to a flat of sand teeming with steamers — as soft-shell clams are sometimes called.
Jon Hentz, a shellfish warden for the region, gave instructions on identifying the tiny holes that buried clams make when they extend their siphons out the sand to feed by filtering water, then retreat back into their shells when the tide goes out.
Hentz instructed participants to dig around the clam with a trowel or rake, then reach in and grab it.
That sounds simple, but takes practice to get the hang of it. After a few instances of scaring clams deep into the sand, I kept trying.
With a small gardening trowel that proved easiest to work with, I dug until my forearms were halfway into a sandy hole. Then I saw it: the siphon disappearing further into the sand where a clam was trying to hide.
Like an old-timey gold miner, I grabbed the clam out of the sand and lifted it up above me in triumph. At 3 inches across, it didn’t come close to the biggest one caught that day.
Organizers circulated with specially sized rings cut out of PVC pipe to make sure the harvested clams were longer than two inches, to comply with a state law that limits how many under that size can be kept.
Hentz also offered me a shot at a tool known as the Claminator, a cylindrical piece of steel equipment that can suck clams out of the sand, cutting down on the back-breaking labor of digging.
At the end of the two hours, participants had their clams measured for a size competition — which a toddler won with one that was more than 4 inches in diameter.
Kennebec Estuary Land Trust has held its learn-to-clam trainings for about a decade. Executive Director Becky Kolak said it’s the group’s most popular education event, helping participants to connect with nature and understand Maine’s marine economy.
“And it’s legitimately fun to do. You get your hands dirty and you’re sandy and salty,” Kolak said.
By noon, my hands were plenty dirty, and I had gathered a half dozen clams in my bag. Never having eaten one, I assumed that was enough to make a dinner for two. I put them on ice in my trunk and brought them back to my apartment in Harpswell.
But when I returned, my partner gently suggested that six clams would not be enough to make a full dish of steamers. Plus, at least two of them appeared to have died.
What to do with the remaining four? I had grown attached to the little guys waving their siphons in the bowl of saltwater that was temporarily housing them in my fridge. It seemed wasteful to kill them for such a small meal, so I instead returned them to the sea near my apartment.
I promised myself that soon, I would go back and dig an acceptable amount.
At Reid State Park, anyone can dig one peck of clams per person, even without a license, though it’s important to avoid doing so on nearby property owned by the town of Georgetown. Wolf’s Neck State Park in Freeport also allows recreational clamming without a license.
Otherwise, towns in Maine may offer recreational licenses. When going clamming, always check to see if the flats are closed because of pollution.