Hillbilly Hunting and Clamming with Class

"I'm like a little troll who lives on nothing but river water and squirrel meats!" - Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.

My brother and I headed deep into the woods for a little squirrel hunt the other day. We encountered hears of elk, huge flocks of doves, and a pair of golden eagles! It was pretty amazing!

Late in the day my brother had two squirrels in the bag and we both had wide grins!

My brother cooked up a nice batch of squirrel with dumplings and he said it was incredible!

 



Next, my ladyfriend heard about how much fun clamming was the other day. She had never been clamming before, so the two of us hit the coast for the low tide and had a great sunset foray! The night before, Diane kept threatening to bring her classy gold rain boots with heals. The idea of her tromping around the mud in those boots had me cracking up!

In no time she had her first legal sized littleneck clam!

We had to race the sun as you can only legally take clams until a half hour after sunset. However, by that time we had plenty of mussels and ninety clams (just ten short of our limit) as we repaired the portions of the beach we had excavated and reburied juvenile clams to let them grow for next season.

By early evening we patiently waited as our clam appetizer steamed in sea water and onions. The subsequent beach-feast and clam chowder with our wild harvested black trumpet mushrooms were absolutely superb!

Well, the tides will be low again soon and we hope to greet them with shovels, buckets, and big smiles!

Keep the old ways alive!

Clams, Fungi, and Other Wintertime Forays

"The two of you are walking around in the sewer, naked, looking for rings and coins?"- Dennis. "You feel em with your feet! It's almost like clamming!"- Frank, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

My good old buddy Matt and I reconnected after some years over marine mud flats and hidden gems...I am of course speaking of winter's bountiful bivalves...clams!!!!

But before we get into that, check out the hefty harvest my buddy Alex and I gathered in the coastal woodlands the day before! Black trumpets, angel wings, hedgehogs, jelly teeth, and even a few candy caps and a golden chanterelle! So many good meals!

Alright, now back to the nitty gritty we call clamming!

After careful excavation with a shovel (and not so careful excavation on hands and knees with black muck-covered bare hands, stained shirts and black and blue jeans), we came up with our first haul of horseneck clams. Next we made our way to the rocky and gravely edge of the low tide mark and scraped up my limit (50) of little neck clams, aka steamers, in approximately fifteen minutes!

We were all smiles! The subsequent clam calamari and chowder were so good I forgot to get pics!

A few days later I hit the inland riparian forest with my buddy Eric for his first mushroom hunt and we cleaned up! He had a full bag of oyster mushrooms in a few hours!

Next, I took my lady friend Diane into "the wild" for some fungi fun. We located a beautiful cluster of velvet foots and a few bear's Heads in no time flat!

So much wild food, so little time! And yeah, we used the last Dungeness crab I caught to make crab ravioli with sage-butter-mushroom sauce for dinner...not too bad at all!

Well, duck season is in full swing, and I will be headed out to meet it just as soon as I bail all the rainwater out of my canoe!

Hope to see you out there enjoying all the fun and adventure the wet winter weather has to offer!

Keep the old ways alive!