BigEye Dave's Tomales Clamming Tutorial

Here's the abreviated version of what BigEye Dave taught me about digging up clams at Tomales Bay.  Hopefully, Dave can elaborate enough, so Bill can post this as an article for the homepage.

What to Bring
- a long sturdy spade tip shovel
- a 14 to 16" diameter PVC tube about the length of your arm
- a mesh bag or bucket to keep the clams

How to Find & Harvest Clams
1) Secure your tube and tools to your yak.
2) Paddle out to a sand bar looking for squirting clams.
3) Look for clam holes with clam's lips actually showing.
4) The bigger clams have holes wide enough to fit two or more fingers.
5) Use your tube to mark an outline around the hole you plan to dig.
6) Dig down about a foot and insert the tube to keep hole from collapsing.
7) Continue to dig sand out of the tube, keep you shovel blade close to the walls of the tube to prevent hitting the clam.
8 ) To push the tube deeper into the hole, stand on the top of the tube and rock side to side.
9) Dig down two to three feet until you can feel the clam or see it's neck.
10) Carefully reach down and grab the base of the neck and pull up very slowly until you can loosen, grab, and lift the clam by it's shell.

Now, repeat this 9 more times or until you get enough.  Bag limit = 10 clams.  The DFG regs say you must keep the first 10 you harvest.

Thanks Chuck.  I would add just a couple of things.
1.  Make sure you have rope handles on your tube so you can pull it out of the sand after you dig your clam.
2.  A longer tube helps you to go deeper where the big ones are.   If you are a trophy hunter like Nate you need a long tube and some kind of forked long handled rod to reach down 4 or more feet into the sand after you dig it out to grab the big ones.
3.  A syphon tube like this:
http://www.coastsidefishingclub.com/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/305424/an/0/page/1/gonew/1#UNREAD
can be really helpful to get water out of your tube if it starts to fill with water
4. You really need a 0.2 or lower tide to get them.  You can pick up a free clam tide schedule calender at the Tomales Bay Gate or Boathouse. 
5.  Size matters, because you can only keep the first ten you dig.  In this instance a 3 finger hole is better than a 2 finger hole
6.  Do not waste your time and energy digging on a whole with no clam showing. If I don't see the whites of their eyes I don't dig.  There is nothing worse than digging a three foot hole for nothing.
7.  Put your clams in something right away because the gulls will try to carry them off.
8. If you want ghost shrimp bring a container for them.  You will dig up plenty.
9.I you cut the neck off a clam while digging, a neck counts as a clam so just keep that in mind.  In other words, be careful not to break the shells or cut the necks off.  It makes cleaning them much easier.
I think that is about it.  Be careful because the wind really comes up quick there.  It can be a slow miserable paddle back to Lawson's.

Sounds like a lot of fun. We used to get clams in the Long Beach inlet in New York, like, 30 years ago, I can still remember my Aunt saying "Holy shit its the @#$%%!! Coast Guard!" Man ,that was  some good chowder.

Where do you find the large diameter pvc?
             Morgan