RAKIN' IN 

 THE CLAMS 



By Jeannie Faris • Photos by Michael Halminski 



Ke\ 



JXevin Midgett has one of those old 

 family names that seem to define commercial 

 fishing in North Carolina. For 13 years, he's 

 run the family-owned Hatteras Village Aqua 

 Farm on Highway 12, growing and selling his 

 own clams. 



It's a good living for growers, who 

 collectively raked $850,000 worth of clams 

 from North Carolina bottomlands in 1994. 



But clamming is more than a livelihood 

 — it's a way of life. It's a centuries-old 

 tradition on the coast, a skill passed down for 

 generations. There's a knack to knowing 

 where clams can be found under acres of tidal 

 flats, recognizing the telltale "keyholes" of 

 clams in the sand, detecting the clink and pull 

 of metal tongs on buried shell. 



So how is a visitor to know any of this? 

 The know-how of harvesting clams is much 

 like the closely guarded secrets of a good 

 fishing hole. Nobody's going to hand them 

 over to virtual strangers. And increasingly, 

 clamming grounds are off-limits to the public. 



Well, get out your raking gloves. This 

 year, there's a way, and you don't need 

 Midgett, Daniels or Tillett tagged to the end of 



your name to catch a clam supper for yourself. 



On May 1 , Midgett opened a private clam 

 bed to tourists to test the success of a "you- 

 rake-it" style clamming business on the Outer 

 Banks. This idea, unique to the East Coast, is 

 based on the pick-your-own vegetable patches 

 common to rural crossroads. 



The project was funded by the National 

 Coastal Resources Research and Development 

 Institute (NCRI) to test the viability of a 

 business that combines competitively priced 

 seafood, an outdoor activity for tourists and 

 easier public access to a long-standing coastal 

 tradition. The pick-your-own venture, if it 

 succeeds on the East Coast, will enhance 

 tourism and harness its power for commercial 

 fishermen, who are searching for economic 

 opportunities in the face of declining catches 

 and tougher regulations. Many watermen lack 

 the skills or inclination to enter the growing 

 tourism economy. Likewise, most visitors to 

 the coast don't participate in shellfishing, 

 though they'd like to. 



The idea took shape at the hands of Jim 

 Murray, director of Sea Grant's Marine 

 Advisory Service. Murray secured the NCRI 



Continued 



