How to build a clam pump and the sport of clams

If any of you jocks are thinking of trying the sport of clam digging, you need to learn how to build a clam bomb or you’ll have a lot of work. 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 clam bomb! The clams I’m talking about here are horsenecks, geoducks, washingtons, softshells, and that long-necked type of clam.

The clam pump is a simple device and can be easily made in your home garage with very little expense. All you need is a piece of 30 inch 3″ pvc pipe with a flat cap glued on one end for the pump body. You then 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 washers, like compressed tennis balls or pieces of rubber tires, on the other end that are pushed a little tight against the inside of the pvc pipe to act as “plungers” to suck up the water when you pull back on the wand handle at the top of the pump.

The pump body (3″ pvc) has a hole in the side about an inch below the lid to allow trapped air and water to escape when you pull up on the pump handle. The lid itself it has a small hole in the center of it at the top of the pump so the sucker rod can be inserted through it.At 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 inches long with holes halfway through both sides of the tube to allow the suction rod to pass through it for attachment. Thread a nut onto the threads of the sucker rod along with a washer to where the threads end.Put the rod through the handle piece and thread another washer, lock washer, and handle clamp nut between them and the first nut and now Fit it and tighten it so that it is secure. A little “Tighten” would be helpful here and then cut off the excess threaded rod for security. .

The rubber washers are placed in the same way on the other end of the sucker rod, but be sure to place them before inserting them and the rod into the pump body, as they will be inside the pipe when the handle is attached 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 tubing in your hand can be awkward. An easy fix for this is to place a piece of ¾-inch flat bar in the center of the lid so that it hangs down a couple of inches on each side of the pump. You’ll drill a hole in this the same way you did the top of the cap, since they will “line up” on top of each other and the sucker rod will go through both. This flat rod will hold securely to the cap before you attach it with small nuts, washers, and bolts which will require drilling in the flat rod to fit. This also has the added benefit of protecting the plastic cap from quickly wearing out from the rod being passed around during pumping.

Another good solution to the handle problem is to drill a small hole in the pump body 6-10 inches from the top of the cover and insert a 5-inch bolt 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 low tide. This is because the clam pump uses water to blow towards the clam, not to suck up the mud, so you should 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 back into the hole away from your finger. Place the bottom of the pump over the hole and suck up the water and quickly take it out in the sand and mud. Do not push the pump down, if anything, lift it up a bit off the sand. Your bomb will sink several inches. Repeat this until you feel the hard shell of the clam against the body of the pump. You go 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 used to it you can hold the pump and pump quickly with one last big “suction” and spit out the clam in front of you. You may still have to feel it out 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 will have your limit in just minutes, while you will see the shovel brigades working forever! Be prepared to explain how you built that magical tool, as these people will surely interrogate you in one of his many breaks.

Now the clam chowder, clam strips and raw clams with lime and wasabi! Hold on!!!, you have to clean them. This takes more time than pumping, but it gets 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 neck. First, remove the body from the shell by running a sharp knife along the length of 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 near-boiling water for a few seconds to scald it. Next, peel away the brown skin from the neck and any rest of the body to expose the snow-white meat. 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 the beaches and outbuildings to avoid work, it takes some time! Clam away!