catching lunch

So ever sense we moved to Washington, Jim has talked about how we can buy a permit, and go catch all the seafood we could possibly want. So last week, we got permits for about $17 each, which lasts a year. Very cool. So last Wednesday, we went out to a beach on the Hood's Canal, just east of the bridge, and went crabbing. Jim snorkled and I walked around about waist-high in the water. He found 6 keepers, and I found 0. Thats ok though. I couldn't get out deep enough to see them without swimming. Anyway, so this morning, we decided we would get up early and go clam digging. So we went to a public beach near Belfair that was supposed to be a great place for clamming. And we had some GREAT success. First, we found at least 100 clams, but we could only keep 80, so we kept the biggest ones. We found that the best place to find them is in sandy, slightly rocky dirt. Amazingly enough, we also found some rare Olympic oysters. We got about 12 of those. I was just so impressed today that we could just go out, and catch food, come home and eat it. So today, we came home, cleaned the clams, and made soup with them. Here is a picture of it:

Basically, you get liquid, butter, garlic, and parsley, and boil the clams in it until they open. If they don't open, then they are bad, so that makes it easy to not eat a bad one. Then the oysters, we just broiled them in the toaster oven with a little garlic and parsley. Yummy! So I am excited to go out and try a little more catching. Perhaps tomorrow.. Oh yeah, luckily, the clams and crabs both freeze fairly easily, so we can go get some, and freeze it for another day.