Travel / Outdoors

Mark Yuasa covers fishing and outdoors in the Pacific Northwest.

Storms and high surf warnings didn’t stop some coastal razor clam diggers from turning out on Feb. 23-24, and those who braved the weather actually had good success.

“Last weekend’s dig was more successful than I would have expected,” said Dan Ayres, the head state Fish and Wildlife coastal shellfish manager. “The surf was up and it was cold, but it was also sunny and a nice February day.”

“Some folks did report getting “rolled” in the surf, and many were pretty wet,” said Ayres who noted that razor clam diggers are a darn hearty bunch.”

At Long Beach, 3,249 diggers turned out Feb. 23, and dug 25,023 razor clams with a 7.1 clam per person average (the first 15 clams dug are a daily limit). At Twin Harbors, 2,234 diggers dug 26,954 for a 12.1 average.

At Long Beach, 1,381 diggers on Feb. 24 dug up 18,136 razor clams with a 13.1 clam per person average. At Twin Harbors, 717 diggers dug 8,886 for a 12.4 average.

The total turnout at the two beaches for both days was 7,580 diggers with 78,999 clams. Since Oct. 13, the season total turnout is 145,664 who dug more than 1.9-million razor clams.

The total allowable harvest is 39.6 percent at Long Beach; 27.0 percent at Twin Harbors; 40.3 percent at Copalis; and 32.8 percent at Mocrocks.

“We still have plenty of clams for the spring morning tides coming down the road,” Ayres said. “We should have the OK for the March digs by Monday (March 4).”

Other tentative afternoon digs are March 7-8 and March 11 at Twin Harbors; and March 9-10 at Twin Harbors, Long Beach, Copalis and Mocrocks. Morning digs will occur March 28 and March 31 at Twin Harbors; March 29-30 at Twin Harbors, Long Beach, Copalis and Mocrocks. More digs are planned in April and May.

(Photo courtesy of Ryan Nakata. Pictured is Truman Curry with a nice razor clam he found during last winter’s digs.)