Shellfish / Bay Clam
Shellfish: Bay Clam
Leukoma staminea / Venerupis philippinarum
In window now~142d left
Open
Year-round
No pronounced peak. Native and Manila littlenecks spawn in summer and firm mildly in cold water, but eating quality stays close to flat.
signal · Bay water temp, salinity. (assumed)
Plate No. 038 · Finley & Bohlman
Abundant, low impact
Plentiful in the gravel, native and Manila both; take the legal size and leave the small ones to grow.
The read
Small crisscross-textured shells, near the surface in gravelly mud.
The event: A minus tide over gravelly mud; the Manila sits shallow.
Field notes
Gravelly mud and cobble near the surface (top 4–6 in), often high on the flat where fewer diggers work. Turn the gravel with a rake or fork on the minus tide; the introduced Manila especially clusters shallow.
Small, hard shell with a fine crosshatch, snapping shut when handled: the sweetest, cleanest bay clam and the true steamer. A clam that stays open is done. Good year-round; the native (Leukoma) and the Manila (Venerupis) both eat beautifully, the Manila often stained purple inside.
Round-oval with a crosshatch of radiating and concentric lines. The Manila runs a touch more oblong with purple inside; both are keepers.
Shellfish license (12+). Part of the 20-clam daily bay aggregate.
Confirm the bay is open before you dig.
Steam just until they open and eat with the broth: over pasta, or a simple butter-and-wine steam. Small enough to need no shucking.
Where to find it
What we watch: live feeds
What informs Littleneck Clams in particular. The shared feeds it reads (tides, weather, water temp) are the live feeds above.
ODA shellfish closures: ArcGIS FeatureServer · Machine-readable open/closed status for clams & mussels by coast zone, as polygons with a coded Status field.
Event (~2×/mo) · JSON, no key. ESRI IDs rotate; anchor on dashboard item metadata, not raw URL.
NOAA CO-OPS Tides & Currents API · Tides, minus-tide clamming windows, Yaquina water temp. Stations: Yaquina 9435380, Garibaldi 9437540, Netarts 9437262, Nehalem 9437908.
6-min obs; preds years ahead · No key. Filter lows < 0.0 ft for minus tides. Water-temp product discontinued after 2024 at many stations.