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> Quick bug stop on the Dosewallips River

This long day trip from home to the Olympic Peninsula was primarily an attempt to dig a geoduck, a Pacific Northwest delicacy and the largest species of burrowing clam. I built a special tool to help dig them up from 3 feet under the sediment in the tidal flat off the Dosewallips River estuary, where the big clams are exposed only during the lowest tides of the summer. They're apparently located among the eelgrass at this beach by locating where they spurt jets of water 5-10 feet into the air as the tide recedes or rises. Unfortunately, I didn't see a single jet of water nor any other sign of a geoduck, even with the tide dropping to -2.8 feet.

My consolation prizes were some delicious steamer clams (manila clams), an easy find higher in the tidal zone, and some bugs to photograph from a short sampling stop upriver.