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lofty · Joined: 07 May 2008 Posts: 65 Location: north mayo

just wondering is there any good places that anybody knows of for razor clams along the sligo/mayo coastline i am struggling to have any luck getting some

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1163 Location: Campile. Wexford

Blowin?

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blowin · Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 1:02 am Post subject:

Hi lofty and welcome to the forum Very Happy

.
Ballasadaire bay Wink

There are empty shells all over the place but there is only one spot where I have ever been able to catch them live .
You have to be there at extreme low water on a big tide ---- like about now I would think . Seriously !
I don't want to give specific details on the open forum because the bed is small and could quickly be over-exploited but if you ( or any other registered member ) would like to pm me I would be happy to help .
As it happens I am due to be at that very spot tomorrow evening , but that is high tide so won't be a lot of use to you ! Laughing

Still , if you happen to be passing and see a green landrover stuck in the water you might be good enough to pull me out ! Laughing

admin · Site Admin Joined: 13 Dec 2006 Posts: 227

CAUTION to sensitive readers -- THIS GETS QUITE GROSS TOWARDS THE END

I imagine they would be a good bait if they weren't so scarce but I take it you want them for the table ? Have you tried them before ? I thought they had an intensely sweet flavour , a bit like those so called crab-sticks but much more concentrated . Texture was like tender calamari . An interesting gourmet experience but I personally wouldn't want to eat them very often .
The cooking was nothing short of freaky the first time I tried it . I think Ray Mears steams them but I thought that was inhumane ( too slow ) so I dropped them into a hot frying pan thinking they would open and be cooked as quickly as mussels . In fact the shells opened along their full ( 6") length and the foot of the clam , which is about the size of my middle finger , thrashed about for what seemed like ages . I would actually has driven them back to the sea if that would have saved them !
Quite the most disturbing bit of cooking I have ever done !
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lofty · Joined: 07 May 2008 Posts: 65 Location: north mayo

well it sounds like they taste exactly like i had imagined. only to get my hands on a few now is the next task thanks for that

admin · Site Admin Joined: 13 Dec 2006 Posts: 227

Just to quantify what I meant by a big tide , the bed was accessible on Friday before last but was just out of depth on Sunday just gone . Sorry I don't have the tables ( or a calendar ) in front of me to tell you the exact heights but I think low water was 0.1 and 0.4 respectively . You can see that there is only a small windeow of opportunity for that spot unless there is some method of catching them under water .
Incidentally , quite a few of the keyhole shaped dips in the sand down there look very similar to the ones the razors leave but they have sea-urchins beneath them ! These have a heart-shaped shell with short , blunt spines . I don't know whether you can eat them ( their red/blackcousins aren't bad ) but the point is that you'd be standing there for ages without anything happening if you were using the salt-down-the-hole method Laughing

Good luck

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