If any of you sportsmen are thinking of trying the sport of clam digging, you need to learn how to build a clam bomb or you will have a lot of work to do. Pumping clams with a clam pump is about a hundred times easier and faster than any other method I’ve seen, all of which usually involve that archaic device known as a shovel. No need for such a dreaded tool when deploying the clamshell bomb! The clams I’m talking about here are coltsfoot, geoducks, washingtons, softshells, and that kind of longneck clam.
The clamshell pump is a simple device and can be easily made in your home garage with very little expense. All you need is a 30 inch piece of 3″ pvc pipe with a flat cap glued on one end for the pump body. Then you need a thirty inch long by ¼ inch rod that is threaded for about three inches on each end that will hold a handle on one end and flat round rubber grommets, like compressed tennis balls or pieces of rubber tires, on the other end that are slightly snug against the inside of the pvc pipe to act as “plungers” to suck up water when you pull back on the rod handle at the top of the pump.
The pump body (the 3″ pvc) has a hole in the side about an inch below the cap to allow trapped air and water to escape when you pull up on the pump handle. The cap itself it has a small hole in the center of it at the top of the pump so that the sucker rod can be inserted through it.On the top of the sucker rod there will be a piece of ¾ inch metal tubing perpendicular to the rod as the pump handle. This will be about 6″ long with holes halfway through both sides of the tube to allow the sucker rod to pass through so it can be attached. Thread a nut onto suction rod threads along with a washer to where the threads end.Put the rod through the handle piece and thread another washer, a lock washer and a nut to tighten the handle between them and the first nut and plow nd it and tighten to make it secure. A little “tightening” would be helpful here and then cut off the excess threaded rod for safety. .
The rubber grommets are fitted in the same way to the other end of the sucker rod, but be sure to fit them before inserting them and the rod into the pump body, as they will be inside the pipe when the handle is fitted afterwards. . passing through the hole in the cape.
Lastly, you need a way to hold the pump body when you’re pumping, as holding the three-inch tube in your hand can be awkward. An easy fix for this is to place a 3/4-inch piece of flat bar in the center of the cap so that it hangs a couple of inches on either side of the pump. You will drill a hole in this the same way you drilled the top of the lid, as they will “line up” on top of each other and the sucker rod will go through both. This flat rod will be securely fastened to the cap before being glued with small nuts, washers and bolts that will require drilling in the flat rod to fit. This also has the added benefit of protecting the plastic cap from wearing out quickly due to the rod passing back and forth during pumping.
Another good solution to the handle problem is to drill a small hole in the pump body 6 to 10 inches from the top of the cover and insert a bolt 5 inches from the inside with a washer. Find or make a metal or wooden handle for the bolt to go through the center of and put a washer and nut on the outside of the handle to hold it in place.
Now for the fun part—-How to properly use this amazing device! First, find the clam! Wait until the tide is well out, but about 45 minutes before the tide goes out. This is because the clam pump uses water to blow towards the clam, not to suck up the mud, so you need to have a few inches of water above the mud where you are extracting the clam. Walk around and when you think you see the clam’s mouth sticking out, which is usually just a little oddity in the sand or maybe the two “nostrils”, stick your finger in the hole. If it’s a clam, you’ll feel a somewhat slimy creature immediately retreat into the hole away from your finger. Put the bottom of the pump over the hole and suck the water up and out quickly in the sand and mud. Do not push the pump down, in any case lift it up a bit from the sand. Your pump will sink several inches. Repeat this until you feel the hard shell of the clam against the body of the pump. You get into the hole and search for the clam, as well as around it, as many times as you can get 2 or 3 out of a hole. Sometimes, once you get the hang of it, you can hold the pump and pump quickly with one last big “suck” and spit out the clam in front of you. You may still have to feel it or wait for the water to clear as you go to the next one, as the water is too cloudy from all the pumping to see in front of you.
You’ll have your limit in just minutes, while watching the shovel crews working forever! Be prepared to explain how you built that magic tool, as these people are sure to question you on one of his many breaks.
Now Clam Chowder, Clam Strips, and Wasabi Lime Raw Clams! Hold on!!!, you have to clean them. This takes longer than pumping, but is sped up with a few jokes, beer, passing gas, or whatever your mode of cheap entertainment is.
To clean a clam, there are basically two parts. By that I mean the body and the neck. First, you remove the body from the shell by sliding your sharp knife along the shell on the inside of both halves of the clam to cut through the “scallop” muscle that attaches the clam to the shell. Then remove the neck from the body where the rough “skin” of the neck begins. Submerge the neck in almost boiling water for a few seconds to scald it. Next, peel back the brown skin from the neck and any remaining body to expose the snow-white flesh. Cut the neck almost in half along its entire length and rinse well to avoid that “gritty” feeling in the mouth when chewing. This is simple, but when you have 50 or 100 clams in front of you and they all scatter to beaches and outhouses to avoid work, it takes some time! Clam away!