By Steve M 



Mechanical 

 Harvesters 

 vs. 

 Hand 

 Clammers 



scientific name, mercenaria merce- 

 naria, which means money. Mike 

 Marshall, a shellfish biologist with 

 the N.C. Division of Marine Fisher- 

 ies, says fishermen were paid as 

 much as 18 and 19 cents a pound 

 then for the littlenecks (the smallest 

 and most valuable clams used in 

 the half-shell market). 



With this financial lure before 

 them, many fishermen turned to 

 easier, more efficient mechanical 

 harvest. In North Carolina, fisher- 

 men can mechanically harvest 

 clams with a hydraulic dredge or a 

 kicker plate. 



Hydraulic dredges use a nozzle 

 to dislodge clams from the sedi- 

 ment and a conveyor to bring them 

 to the surface. To kick clams, the 

 fisherman welds a metal plate to 

 the rudder of the boat. The plate 

 deflects the prop wash from the 

 rudder to the sound bottom, where 

 it plows an 8- to 12-inch wide path. 

 A heavy net is pulled behind the 

 boat to net the catch. 



Mechanical harvest allowed fish- 

 ermen to bag more clams and to 

 reach deeper beds unattainable by 

 hand harvest. The result? Landings 

 doubled in 1977 from the previous 

 year, and continued to climb until 

 they reached a peak in 1982 of 



more than 1.7 milHon pounds. 



The advent of mechanical har- 

 vest stirred controversy within the 

 fishery and headaches for resource 

 managers. Hand rakers claimed 

 mechanical harvesters were en- 

 croaching on their territory, wiping 

 out their fishery. And resource man- 

 agers quickly noticed the damage 

 kicking did to grass beds. Grass 

 beds are important refuges and 

 growing areas for other mollusks, 

 crustaceans and finfish. 



To manage both problems, the 

 N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission 

 imposed restrictions. Clammers 

 could not harvest more than 40 

 bags of the mollusks, which had to 

 be at least one inch thick. Dredging 

 was confined to waters deeper than 

 7 feet. And all mechanical harvest 

 was limited to daylight hours on 

 certain days (usually Monday, Tues- 

 day and Wednesday) of the week 

 from December 1 to March 31. 



In 1978, the commission out- 

 lawed kicking, dredging and the 

 use of bull rakes (large heavy rakes 

 that also damaged grass beds) from 

 grass beds or live oyster rock. 



Today clam kicking is limited pri- 

 marily to Carteret County. But last 

 year a few areas were opened in 

 the Intracoastal Waterway in Ons- 



low and Pender counties. 



In 1984, fishermen raked, 

 tonged, kicked and dredged 

 1,388,000 pounds of the mollusks 

 for a dockside value of $5,506,000. 

 DMF managers estimate that 30 to 

 36 percent of the harvest was me- 

 chanical; the rest, hand gathered. 

 In 1984, Marshall says DMF handed 

 out 300 permits for mechanical har- 

 vest; of those, 21 were for dredges. 



Since 1982, landings have drop- 

 ped, and many believe that the 

 clam fishery is being overfished. 

 Unlike scallops and shrimp, clams 

 are a long-lived species; they can 

 live to be over 40 years old. Their 

 harvest represents several years of 

 reproductive investment. Conse- 

 quently their stocks are not replen- 

 ished as quickly as annual fisheries. 



Fentress "Red" Munden, shell- 

 fish coordinator for DMF, puts it 

 like this: "A lot of fishermen 

 jumped into mechanical harvest 

 when they saw the chance and the 

 prices were good. The result is that 

 the fishery has grown more rapidly 

 than the resource can respond." 



Declines in clam stocks have fish- 

 ermen worried. Clams represent 

 an important source of winter in- 

 come, having saved more than one 

 fisherman from financial ruin after 



