Waning days for clammers

[clamchucker]

They shut down clamming in this area because they said the handful of clammers is disturbing the sportfishing industry. What about jet skis, which pull water through the outdrives, and possibly kills fish eggs? What about jet boats, same principle? This seems pretty short-sighted to me.


Waning days for clammers leave them pondering future
By Kristen Wyatt
Associated Press Writer
ASSAWOMAN BAY -- The sun is just barely up and Gary Tull already has his dredger in the shallow bay between Ocean City and the mainland, a few plastic mesh bags full of the hard-shell clams he's caught all his life.

Tull clams like it's second nature. He drops the most valuable clams, little ones for steaming, through a slot into a bucket. He pops bigger clams, some as big as a bagel, into another bucket -- without mixing them with less-valuable razor clams or the mud and crabs that come up from the bottom of the Assawoman Bay.

But Tull's decades on the water may be coming to a close at the end of the month, when Maryland closes forever its power dredge clam fishery in the Atlantic coastal bays. The state legislature mandated the closure amid complaints from sportfishermen that dredging hurts fragile underwater grasses, though state fisheries biologists did not recommend the closure.

The law means that come Sunday, Tull will take his 30-year-old wooden boat home to Crisfield and give up watering, maybe forever. "I'm 56. What am I going to do? I don't know," Tull said.

These are uncertain times for the handful of people who make a living dredging hard-shell clams out of the back bays. Soft-shell clam dredging in the Chesapeake Bay will still be allowed, but that practice is so hit-or-miss no waterman makes a living doing it. Hand-tonging for clams will be allowed, but the days of making a living catching clams and oysters by hand are past. Tull and his fellow clammers say the Maryland clam industry will die forever at the end of the month.

While the plight of Maryland crabbers has grabbed the public's attention, with the female blue crab harvest cut by a third this year and calls from politicians and crabbers to subsidize crabbers hurt from the decrease, no one's talking about the clammers.

A bill to compensate the clammers for their dredge equipment failed in the General Assembly, and Tull and his colleagues have not been able to see Gov. Martin O'Malley to beg for state assistance.

The clammers say it's almost like no one cares.

"We got nothing," said Ryan Williams of Crisfield, helping another clammer unload bags full of clams into the back of the truck after a day on the Assawoman. "This is all I've ever done -- clam. We've had a lot of discussion about getting some kind of compensation, but they say their hands are tied."

The arguments
Maryland is closing its coastal bay hard-shell clam fishery after years of complaints from recreational anglers. Opponents say clam dredges leave plumes of mud in the shallow bays, tearing up valuable habitat and making it hard to catch striped bass, flounder and other fish prized by sportfishermen.

"They just tear all the clams out of the bottom bay, and they are filter feeders that help keep the bay clean," said Budd Heim, an angler from nearby Ocean Pines and president of the Atlantic Coast chapter of the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen's Association.

Another group that pushed for the clam dredge to be stopped, the Coastal Conservation Association, argues that though it's sad to put a few clammers out of work, the clam fishery isn't nearly as valuable as the recreational fishery. That appears obvious up and down the Assawoman, where working boats are few but yachts and pristine six-figure fishing boats line the coast outside high-rise condominiums.
"The recreational fishery is much more important to the Ocean City area than the four or five guys who are clam dredging," said Robert Glenn, executive director of the Maryland chapter of the CCA.

Clam dredging is more disruptive to the bay floor than oyster dredging. That's because oysters live on the bay floor, but clams burrow a few inches down, requiring more mud to be scraped to retrieve them. Recreational anglers argue clam dredging is a major disruption to fish and grasses, and already about half the Maryland back bays and all coastal bays in Delaware and Virginia are off-limits to power dredging.

But scientists didn't call for the Maryland fishery to close. The state Department of Natural Resources, which regulates commercial fishing in state waters, did not argue for the clamming closure, and the practice is legal in federal waters.

In fact, Maryland DNR tried to amend the dredging bill last year to allow regulators to cut dredging back without closing the fishery. That attempt failed, said Harley Speir, a DNR biologist who works in DNR's policy and regulatory division.

Tull and the other remaining clammers say they've had a good season. Clams are sold in bags of 100, going for $14 or $15 apiece at a seafood wholesaler. Tull hauls in 40 to 50 bags a day and grosses about $80,000 a year, earning about $40,000 after expenses, notably a fuel bill that can top $1,400 a week when he's busy.

When the clam fishery closes, Tull -- who grew up on Smith Island -- isn't sure what he'll do. Maybe he'll join a tugboat crew, but that would keep him away from home for two weeks at a time. He said he may try his hand at baking.
Tull and his wife live on the mainland now, but Cheryl Tull can still whip up a mean Smith Island cake.

"There never was a waterman that could retire. You do it 'til you die," Tull said. "What am I going to do? That's a good question. I hope the cakes work. We'll see. Not being out here? I can't imagine."