So Cousin Pete text messaged the call to clamming this coming weekend, and so I texted back “Weather?” not really being of the mind to dig through the ice before digging in the mud. “60s” came the reply, so I’m in and this is what we will do.
1. Check the tides. An hour on each side of low tide is the time to be clamming. Low tide is late in the afternoon on Saturday, so that gives me the morning to put the boat battery on a trickle charger and to think about repacking the bearings on the trailer (the big procrastination point for me every spring).
2. Renew the clam license. It expired on March 1. This needs to happen Friday and I might as well renew my mooring permits at the same time, at the same office.
3. Buy beer.
4. Buy gas.
5. Launch the boat.
6. Shake the spiders out of my waders. Put them on, look like the Michelin Man.
7. Drive the boat to the secret clam flat.
8. Dig clams.
9. Return home, open the clams (while wife protests that I am making a mess out of the sink), fry them, stuff them, make Clams Casio out them. All while drinking more beer.
10. Eat clams.
Same recipe for crayfish trip out on the Colorado. I also have to do the bearings, Damnit. salt water launching sucks.
–Jim