It’s Pronounced “Gooey-Duck”

This is no ordinary clam. Its scientific name, Panopea generosa, gives a hint: something large … something very large. I've dug clams since I was a kid, but I'd never dug Panopea generosa, better known as the “Geoduck” (pronounced “Gooey-Duck”) which, whatever the pronunciation, is not a duck, it’s the largest burrowing clam in the world.

The geoduck is known as the “king clam,” and the “elephant clam.” When translated literally from Mandarin, it is the “elephant-trunk clam,” which seems pretty descriptive. The name actually comes from the Nisqually people’s language, “gweduc,” meaning “dig deep.”

When my brother John asked me if I wanted to come “dig ducks” with him I jumped at the chance. My brother is the right person to dig geoducks alongside. John knows where to find them, how to dig them, and he possesses the proper geoduck-digging tools. Best of all, John can tell the difference between a geoduck and its much less desirable cousin, the horse clam – also called a gaper clam – which is known for its tough meat.

“It's a lot of work,” my brother reminded me, “so be sure to bring some young people with you.” I brought my daughter and John brought his two kids for this labor-intensive exercise.

Geoduck hunting takes some advance planning: you are governed, of course, by the tides, and you must find one of the lowest tides of the year, as well as know the best beaches to dig. Native to Pacific Coast waters from Alaska to Baja California, the geoduck is typically found in inland waters, not along the coast. This monster clam is prolific in Puget Sound – and long lived.

Panopea generosa is among the longest living animals around, with a typical lifespan of 140 years (the oldest recorded geoduck was 179 years). It helps that it has few natural predators, and that about 90 percent of geoducks are sub-tidal, so even on the lowest tide they never see the light of day; they’re too deep. Geoducks have been found in Puget Sound waters as deep as 360 feet.

Believe it or not, geoducks account for an enormous amount of biomass in Puget Sound waters. They make up an estimated 100 million pounds of the living material in the Salish Sea.

An early summer morning of blue skies and cotton ball clouds greeted us when I met my brother at the Sequim Bay Marina. The five of us loaded John’s boat with shovels, boots, buckets, and a wide, bulky cylindrical aluminum tube – we called it the “geoduck can” – then boated out to the tide flats at Jamestown. Tides must be at least minus two feet to harvest geoducks, and our plan that morning was to dig during the 10 a.m. tide, a particularly low one at minus 3.2 feet.

Geoducks are strange looking creatures: they have a very long siphon, or “neck,” which can extend up to three feet. This means you'll be digging in three feet of wet, muddy sand, while the hole you dig continually works against you by caving in and filling with water (that’s where the can comes in). A geoduck’s shell can grow up to nine inches long, but its body is so large and the neck so long, the animal can’t retract into its own shell.

“It takes time for them to show,” John told us. “That's when their neck extends a little bit above the surface of the beach. It doesn't usually happen until after the low ebb, when the tide starts coming back in.”

Approaching Jamestown, we motored in as close to the shore as we could and dropped anchor. Hopping out of the boat, the five of us walked in shallow water the rest of the way to the exposed tide flats. Although I’d visited this beach before, the scene before me seemed otherworldly. It felt strange, walking over a massive section of exposed seafloor. I stepped around green seaweed, brown seaweed, and little shallow pools of seawater reflecting blue sky.

“Let’s start by roaming around the beach and trying to spot the exposed end of the geoduck’s siphon,” John instructed us. We all spread out, walking in random directions, heads down while breathing in the salty air. “The trick is knowing the difference between a geoduck siphon and a horse clam siphon,” John said.

“Dad, here’s one!” his son or daughter would shout, pointing excitedly.

“No, that’s a horse clam,” John invariably answered, “but keep looking.”

I spent the next twenty minutes walking around the beach, head down, and came to the conclusion that a geoduck siphon and a horse clam siphon look an awful lot alike. Both have a long neck, are greenish brown in color, and possess two openings at the end.

“Nope,” John told me, as I pointed to what I was sure was a geoduck.

“No, that’s not one either,” John explained a few minutes later. “Sorry, that's another horse clam.”

After the fourth or fifth mis-sighting, my ever-patient brother observed, “There are plenty of horse clams here on the beach.” Smiling, he added, “But you want to dig geoducks today, right?”

John had his shellfish license, permitting him to dig three geoducks (because of their size, I’d be happy to get one). It was reassuring having my brother with me to point out what is, and what is not, a geoduck siphon, because when we finally did identify a geoduck (John spotted it), I didn't think it really looked any different than all those horse clam siphons I had spotted. But we grabbed our shovels, confident that John was right.

As the suspected geoduck retracted its siphon, my brother marked the spot with a little flag, and we commenced digging a hole around the flag. Steamer clams are typically three or four inches deep in the sand, and one scoop of the shovel is your usual size “clamming hole.” Panopea generosa, however, required two of us to dig a much wider hole, more like a foxhole, which seemed appropriate because it felt as though we were going into battle with this behemoth bivalve.

As we continued to dig, the hole got deeper and wider, until John was ready for the can. John Jr. fetched it and my brother centered it on the hole. Retrieving the small flag, John scooped out the sand in the middle by hand, and worked the can as far into the sand as possible. Then John Jr. steadied himself with a hand on his dad’s shoulder, and hopped up on the can, rocking it back and forth in an effort to make it go deeper still. Once we had the can into the sand as far as possible, everyone dug out the sand inside it.

Occasionally, we'd stop digging and my brother would get down on his hands and knees, lean into the hole, and gently feel around the sand in the center, seeing if he could feel the retracted siphon.

“Nothing…” John said each time, straightening up. “This one’s deep.” John stretched his back, then nodded and said, “Let’s keep digging.” Shoveling wet sand out of a metal can is tiring, so we took turns relieving one another.

After another twenty minutes my brother – this time down in the hole with his head, shoulders, and arms, his shirt and trousers thoroughly soaked – still couldn’t reach the elusive creature. Our can retained the sides of the hole, but at this point we had dug deeper than the can’s length, and the bottom of the hole began to collapse and accumulate water. John straightened up, glanced at the gradually creeping tide, and shook his head. It became apparent to everyone that this was a losing proposition: as sometimes happens in fishing, the big one got away.

We pulled out the can (which required more digging, this time on the outside of the can), and eventually got around to filling the hole back in. Then we all went back to searching for siphons. Heads down, we wandered randomly over the vast tidal flats, stepping around rocks, clamshells, seaweed that look like wilted lettuce, and the occasional red rock crab which scampered out of the way as seagulls called out overhead.

Wild commercial harvesting involves underwater divers in a year-round fisheries business, co-managed by the state and tribal authorities. Underwater, commercial fishers use tools including a high pressure water hose to clear seabed sand around the geoduck’s neck. Even with a high pressure hose, it’s still a lot of work.

The reward is delicious, if unusual, seafood. My brother and I love it in chowder, fritters, or as deep fried clam strips.

The payoff is also the price commanded by fresh geoduck. Purchased at Pike Place Market, geoducks can cost $30-$40 a pound. This is a bargain compared to China, where geoducks can cost four or five times that at high-end restaurants.

Washington is a major player in the global geoduck market. Commercial harvesting in The Evergreen State and British Columbia is an $80 million industry, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration.

Asia is a thriving seafood market, with exports going to Japan, South Korea, and especially to China where geoduck is considered a delicacy. In addition to its culinary popularity, Panopea generosa is regarded by some in Asia as an aphrodisiac, thought to enhance fertility, apparently due to its phallic shape. Of course, restaurants need these creatures to be fresh. Puget Sound geoducks harvested in the morning are in refrigerated airplane containers by evening, arriving in China the next morning. Distributed live in saltwater tanks, “From tideland to tabletop,” the elephant trunk clam can command prices ranging from $100 to $150 (or more) per pound in fine dining establishments.

Expensive, elusive, and strangely suggestive, Panopea Generosa is the most impressive clam in the Pacific Northwest, but it’s still an odd looking creature leading a leisurely, slow paced existence. While it sits there in the mud, harvesting geoducks, commercially or recreationally, is a lot of work. You have got to dig deep.

My daughter spotted the next geoduck siphon, and once John confirmed it really was a geoduck, we all gathered around and commenced digging. Deeper… wider… and eventually in went the geoduck can, which John Jr. again balanced on top of. We were further from the approaching tideline, which afforded us more time as we all took turns digging. When we dug to the length of the can, my brother laid down on the mud flat again, his torso fully in the can. John gingerly maneuvered his hands in and around the center of the hole, his fingertips touching siphon and, further down, shell. “I think we’ve got us a geoduck,” he said, three feet deep into the sand and swiveling his neck around to look up at us. His announcement was greeted with exhausted smiles all around. Slowly, carefully, John pushed his fingertips deeper still, until they were all the way around the shell, and then he gradually lifted the geoduck out of the sand. John’s efforts were met with a group cheer.

Filling the hole back in, my brother observed, “When you've dug eighty percent of the hole, you've accomplished about twenty percent of the work.” As we trudged back to his boat, geoduck trophy in hand, a noisy flock of seagulls passed overhead. Two gulls swooped down to see what they could scavenge while we walked away.

During the boat ride home, John and I exchanged triumphant smiles. Over the sound of the motor, he said, “That was fun. I enjoyed it. But I am a little sore.”

“Me, too,” I said in complete agreement.

Then John added, “Digging for geoducks is a young person’s game.”   X