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NYC Shellfishing

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Edjovees

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On 12/6/2022 at 7:22 PM, Roccus7 said:

Shellfish care is very easy.  Put them in a cooler with ice packs or soda bottles filled with water and frozen prior to loading the cooler up.  Freshly harvested hard shell clams and oysters will easily last 2 weeks in your refrigerator in the "Produce" tray.  Steamers (soft shell clams) and skimmer clams (Atlantic surf clams) will probably only last a week.  Unless you have access to fresh sea water, I do not recommend even thinking about storing shellfish in sea water.  I can ignore that rule because I can put hang them off my backyard dock in a lobster crate.

 

If you need longer term storage, I recommend shucking clams and freezing along with the clam juice.  I guess you could do the same for oysters, but I have no experience.  With them, I have had excellent results by opening them, putting any desired toppings on such as the spinach topping for Oysters Rockefeller, and other baked delights, and freezing in Tupperware containers in layers with plastic wrap separating them.  I pull them out and pop the in a 450°F oven while still frozen for about 20 min and they're outstanding.  I do the same with clams for baked clams, clams casino, etc.  The frozen clam/clam juice I have go for white clam sauce or chowder. 

 

I have never, nor would ever, tried freezing steamers.  I do shuck skimmer clams, but they're brined and frozen for bait; if I have access to hard shell clams, I don't use skimmers for dinner. 

Ohhh wow thank you for those tips, thats really helpful! I recently read that also is important to leave them for a while in water with salt so they can puke all the sand than they might have inside them, do you know anything about this? 

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On 12/6/2022 at 10:25 PM, MikeK said:

Wellcome to SOL!

 

Maybe check out some fairfield county towns like Westport or Norwalk CT.   In CT, each town has their own regulations and license.  Some towns allow out of state, others don't.  Getting information about where to dig is even tougher as people are tight lipped about it and for good reason.  I recommend finding a town your invested in and them contacting the shellfish commissioner or enforcement officer.  They should be able to point you in the right direction.  Tackle shops can be another source of good info

 

Ask the following questions:

Are their shore based spots with public parking?

Places to launch a kayak near beds?

How frequently are the beds open for digging?

Where do I buy a license?

 

Next get out there and do some prospecting.  Move around alot initially until you find suitable digging.  Talk to others.  

 

I love clamming and find it very relaxing and rewarding.  I typically access beds using a kayak.  If your looking for a rake, look no further than ribb rake.  Top quality rakes and customer service that cannot be beat.

 

Good luck amd enjoy the journey and SOL.

Thank you!!!! 

Yes, indeed, the next step is simply to go there and ask directly what needs to be done so I can start doing it; those are questions that I did not know that I had hahaha, but now I get an idea of where to start.

 

When you talked about ribb rake, were you talking about those instruments used to dig into sad or a place??

I want to go and do it so badly, I think that I would find it very relaxing too, and man, I do have some crazy cooking skills that will go perfectly with own-fished shells

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On 12/6/2022 at 10:28 PM, clammer said:

short answer . if you look up in the RI DEM website 

there do sell a license to out of state residents  an with a little research 

there are area s that are available to  get  clam  s    hard shell / Quahogs

from shore  . ya have to really  do your home work to find both the clams an a place to park  . but it id doable 

if you have access to a yak, canoe , etc     then you would have no problem .

but its a long ride  for  the quantity allowed ><.

 

 

 

 

 

oHHH okay okay, I will have to learn how to yak because I only know how to drive a car and against my will. Thanks!

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9 hours ago, Edjovees said:

Thank you!!!! 

Yes, indeed, the next step is simply to go there and ask directly what needs to be done so I can start doing it; those are questions that I did not know that I had hahaha, but now I get an idea of where to start.

 

When you talked about ribb rake, were you talking about those instruments used to dig into sad or a place??

I want to go and do it so badly, I think that I would find it very relaxing too, and man, I do have some crazy cooking skills that will go perfectly with own-fished shells

If your ever in CT I have 2 eagle claw rakes sittin unused your can borrow or trade for. 

 

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9 hours ago, Edjovees said:

Ohhh wow thank you for those tips, thats really helpful! I recently read that also is important to leave them for a while in water with salt so they can puke all the sand than they might have inside them, do you know anything about this? 

Absolutely NO NEED to do this for hard shell clams, razor clams or oysters.  These bivalves should never have sand in them.  If they have sand in them, they're dead/dying and shouldn't be eaten.  

 

This "cleanse" is something ONLY for soft shell clams.   It's a "Kids don't try this at home exercise; if you don't know what you're doing, you'll kill them!!  To successfully do this, you must have fresh sea water, and throw in some ice packs (not ice) into the cooler with the clams, and limit the cleanse to 24 hours.  Some folks add corn meal to the water.  I use neither because when I serve soft shell clams, and I serve them with both broth and melted butter.  The broth dip is intended to get rid of any sand before dipping the clam into the butter and popping it into my mouth!

 

Relaxing???  For me clamming is not physically relaxing, especially in the very rocky area I clam.  AAMOF I'll pop 3 Motrin in before I go out to dig, because the digging and slogging through the mud are quite demanding.  Regardless, I do find it very mentally relaxing and rewarding for this retired Geezer who still loves to play in the mud like a 6 year old.  

Edited by Roccus7

Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau

 

Veni.  Vidi.  Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar

 

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4 hours ago, Roccus7 said:

Absolutely NO NEED to do this for hard shell clams, razor clams or oysters.  These bivalves should never have sand in them.  If they have sand in them, they're dead/dying and shouldn't be eaten.  

 

This "cleanse" is something ONLY for soft shell clams.   It's a "Kids don't try this at home exercise; if you don't know what you're doing, you'll kill them!!  To successfully do this, you must have fresh sea water, and throw in some ice packs (not ice) into the cooler with the clams, and limit the cleanse to 24 hours.  Some folks add corn meal to the water.  I use neither because when I serve soft shell clams, and I serve them with both broth and melted butter.  The broth dip is intended to get rid of any sand before dipping the clam into the butter and popping it into my mouth!

 

Relaxing???  For me clamming is not physically relaxing, especially in the very rocky area I clam.  AAMOF I'll pop 3 Motrin in before I go out to dig, because the digging and slogging through the mud are quite demanding.  Regardless, I do find it very mentally relaxing and rewarding for this retired Geezer who still loves to play in the mud like a 6 year old.  

You don't purge your hardshell clams? The issue isn't the bivalve, it is the muck that is in the clam by the hinge. I've been cutting it away after I steam them and losing a good chunk of clam in the process. We took a seafood cooking class and I cornered the teacher about how to clear the muck. A combination of salt, banking soda, and flour was used at his restaurant to clear out the muck for baked clams and/or general use in the kitchen.

 

As for the OP, welcome to SOL, where spot burning is against the rule, and if you think people are tightlipped about fishing spots, it's a different world for clamming spots. They replenish but usually takes a year or two.

I have the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor. 

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3 hours ago, i_like_poppers said:

You don't purge your hardshell clams? The issue isn't the bivalve, it is the muck that is in the clam by the hinge. I've been cutting it away after I steam them and losing a good chunk of clam in the process.

Nope, never for hard shell clams nor oysters, dug or purchased, and I've been digging clams for over 55 years.  I do hit them with a scrub brush when I get home to clear out any junk by the exterior of the hinge.  I also shuck my clams 95% of the time and have never had to cut away meat by the hinge because of "muck" contamination shucked fresh or steamed.  I've dug hard shell clams, Mercenaria mercenaria, in thick muck, soft muck, sandy muck, and straight, coarse sand, on Long Island and in Maine, and have never needed to purge them.  Same goes for cockles I dug along the coast of Ireland when I lived there.

 

When opening oysters, I use my oyster knife to scrape any mud out of the hinge and then open them.  Once again, never any sand or mud inside, the same goes for the razor clams I collect, and once again, never any internal muck that needed surgical removal with either species.

 

Are you sure that you're really cutting out "muck" or just the part of the clam that is black/turns black when cooked?  I just shucked a bunch and realized that there is a section of the clams "innards" that appears black, but isn't muck.  It's the distal end of the siphon and that's just the pigmentation, and there's no need to cut it out.  There's also an organ inside the "foot" that may be black or turns black when cooked.  It's NOT muck and there's no reason to cut it out. 

 

AND, when shucking clams, if you come across a clear, semi-flaccid "rod" you know you've got really fresh clams.  It's the clam's store of a digestive enzyme in crystalline form.  Rare for me to see it even in freshly dug clams because my season goes Oct 1 - Apr 30 and they are not in a very active feeding cycle during that time.  When I dug on LI in the summer, the clams all had this rod...

Edited by Roccus7

Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau

 

Veni.  Vidi.  Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar

 

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11 hours ago, Roccus7 said:

Absolutely NO NEED to do this for hard shell clams, razor clams or oysters. 

Roccus7, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here too, even though you and I grew up in the same small town in LI.  Now despite growing up there, the only place I've ever clammed is in the Outer Banks on the Pamlico Sound side of Ocracoke on various summer vacations.  It's an absolutely glorious place to clam (an absolute glorious place, period), and I too find clamming incredibly rewarding and relaxing.  Hell, if I could make a living raking clams I certainly would!  These clams are healthy as can be but they really need to be purged before eaten.  Usually instead of trying to fabricate salt water I hang though off a pier in an old onion bag about 1 ft off the ground so they're under the low tide line but still above ground. This usually does the trick.  Leave them like that for maybe 6 hrs min/24 max and they are good to go.  I've also tried the manufactured salt water with corn meal and that's also worked really well.  But if you don't purge them they'll have sand in them, no matter how healthy they are.  Maybe this is just an area difference, Maine (rocky) vs. North Carolina (or LI), which is more sandy/mucky.  But purging is an absolute must with those clams, I think.  Anyway if you have more info on this, I'd like to hear it.  Either way I hope you're ready for the long winter up there!

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5 mins ago, Sandbox said:

Roccus7, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here too, even though you and I grew up in the same small town in LI. 

Interesting.  Even the muckiest LI waters, that being in the creek @ Wading River, I never had a need to purge, go figure.  Learn something every day...

 

Like I said the best purge is one in real sea water.  My dock's lobster crate sees all sorts of creatures, both live bait and seafood delights.  The bivalves in there are usually for longevity, not purging.

Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? - H. D. Thoreau

 

Veni.  Vidi.  Cepi. - with apologies to Gaius Julius Caesar

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I still remember the Relays in Raritan Bay bull raking with 4-5 sections of pipe slicing my fingers up on the hose clamps. Back then it was a 2 man operation, one to rake and the other to help pull the basket up. I had just about every size rake head with different size teeth to work different types of bottom. All my rakes were made by R.A Ribb even my steamer rakes. I worked the Town of Brookhaven, 

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On 12/12/2022 at 10:26 AM, Bergallmaster said:

Granted i only clam during summer and stick the clams in my bathing suit pockets but ive never purged hardshell clams. Maybe their purging while im wading but ive never had sandy clams.

I think youre right, they dont need very long. Just some time in water away from sand. 

I have the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor. 

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