Encyclopedia Dubuque
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CLAM HUNTING: Difference between revisions
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Heavy clam harvesting (first warned about by [[BOEPPLE, John|John BOEPPLE]]),chemical poisoning of the river, and silting of the river bottom have all caused the populations of clams in the river to decline. (Photo Courtesy: http://www.karipearls.com) | Heavy clam harvesting (first warned about by [[BOEPPLE, John|John BOEPPLE]]),chemical poisoning of the river, and silting of the river bottom have all caused the populations of clams in the river to decline. (Photo Courtesy: http://www.karipearls.com) | ||
[[[Category: Industry]] | |||
Revision as of 02:59, 6 December 2008
CLAM HUNTING. Profitable business on the MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Clamming reached its economic peak in the late 1800s when several varieties, including the HIGGIN'S EYE CLAM were used in the BUTTON INDUSTRY.
Clam hunters later used boats from which bars with hundreds of hook-tipped lines were pulled. The clams snapped shut on the hooks and were pulled into the boats. Many clam hunters today, using an air compressor and long lengths of hose, dive into the river. With fifty-pound weight belts to hold them on the river bottom, divers collect clams in nets pulled up with motorized hoists.
Because freshwater clam flesh is inedible, dead clams are worth more--as much as twenty cents a pound in the late 1980s. Clams are cooked and then loaded into metal tumblers perforated with holes. The flesh, dropped out of the holes as the clams tumble in the drum, is used as animal feed or thrown away. A good catch, up to seven hundred pounds daily, has earned a hunter up to three hundred dollars.
Clamshells are shipped to Tennessee or Japan. Bits of shell, surgically implanted into oysters, are used to stimulate the formation of cultured pearls. Occasionally a lucky hunter may find a freshwater clam containing pearls-some valued at over one thousand dollars.
Heavy clam harvesting (first warned about by John BOEPPLE),chemical poisoning of the river, and silting of the river bottom have all caused the populations of clams in the river to decline. (Photo Courtesy: http://www.karipearls.com)
[[[Category: Industry]]