Travelling to the Maritimes means a great opportuinity for fresh fish. But besides eating out at restaurants, you can buy fresh fish from local grocery stores and coops to cook it up yourself. If you are little adventurous, you can catch it yourself. Did you ever try your hand at clamming? Fresh clams cant’s get any fresher!
Fish Markets
You can buy the catch of the day from local fish markets. Just go early. The smaller markets are usually sold out by late morning.
While in in PEI we stopped at the coop in Tignish, Royal Star Foods Ltd. It is a subsidiary of Tignish Fisheries Co-op Association Ltd., which is the largest Atlantic lobster processor on Prince Edward Island.
There was a wide selection, from lobsters to oysters, with very reasonable prices.
Clamming Misinformation
While planning our trip, we watched some YouTube videos of PEI visitors digging clams themselves, and thought we’d want like to try finding our own once we got to the Maritimes.
One of the first places we stayed was Fundy National Park. We inquired about places to clam (where the tide would go out leaving sand flats for digging) and were surprised that the rangers at the park didn’t have a clue. In fact one guy actually said he thought nobody had done clamming for years. That seemed odd since we had watched several videos on YouTube about clamming in the Maratimes.
Finding Access and Watching the Tides
By the time we got to Prince Edward Island, we learned a lot of people clammed. We learned no license is required for clamming but you need to be aware of any posted signs about potential contaminated shellfish areas, and follow the local rules about size and bag limited (maximum number per day).
The difficult part about clamming was finding access and when. Mud/sand flats are ideal, i.e., when the tide is out there are these long stretches of exposed sand, still wet with shellfish between the surface.
To find those sand flats, you need to watch the tides. It is kind of difficult to clam if the tide is low in the wee hours of the morning, or late at night. There are several mobile apps for listing tides in your area (e.g., tidesnearme from iPhone App store).
We found one location near a light house where the tide was low early that morning. We drove out there, and sure enough the tide was out with a guy already there clamming about 200 yards up the sand flat. There was plenty areas to dig. We started down where there was no water or only a few inches and found razor clams, bar clams and several other types. We also found oysters lying in a couple inches of water!
Eating Them is the Best Part
Whether you eat shellfish raw or cooked, fresh is the best. We enjoyed every bite.
If you go clamming, send us a photo of your catch and tell us about it at [email protected].