THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 15, 1996 TAG: 9606150344
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LANE DeGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HATTERAS VILLAGE LENGTH: 151 lines
Last summer, Bob Hookman and his son Mike spent all day searching on their own for clams on the sandy bottom of Pamlico Sound, but found fewer than a fistful.
On Thursday, the visitors from Fort Wayne, Ind., harvested their limit of 100 clams each in less than an hour at the East Coast's only rake-it-yourself clam farm.
They rented rakes for $3 each. They waded into thigh-deep water. They caught enough clams to feed their family a sumptuous seafood supper.
And they really dug the experience.
``It would've been almost impossible for us to to get this many clams if we didn't have a farm to go to,'' Bob Hookman, 36, said while walking back to shore at the Hatteras Village clam site. ``It's like picking your own vegetables. It's so easy - and peaceful.''
Commercial fishermen have raked clams around the Outer Banks for centuries. Tourists, too, have tried their luck at scouting out shellfish beds. But until last month, there was no place that visitors could go and be guaranteed they'd find their fill of shellfish - much less learn how the tasty mollusks mate and mature.
Kevin Midgett has been raising and raking clams for 14 years. On a 17-acre site a mile north of Hatteras Village that his family leases from the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, he spawns, plants and watches the tiny shellfish grow into inch-thick clams. Last summer, the 32-year-old Hatteras Island native opened a seafood shop beside his hatchery. He added retail sales to his burgeoning business of delivering bivalves to local restaurants, and during 1995 sold 80,000 clams. In May, he opened the only you-catch-it clam farm on the Atlantic seaboard.
He's been raking in the profits ever since.
``My income so far this season already has doubled over the same time last year - primarily from the pick-it-yourself part of the business,'' Midgett said while washing clams in the 16 plastic trays that line his soundside hatchery. ``I've raised seed clams here for years. And that kind of became a tourist draw. People were coming by to see the place anyway. Friends were offering to help me rake the clams.
``So I just decided to open up and let anyone who wanted to come in and clam.''
Littleneck, cherrystone, topcherry and chowder clams all lie waiting to be discovered beneath an inch of black-gray silt on Midgett's farm. The raking grounds are about a 10-minute walk from shore. Almost every time customers bend their backs and pull their rakes, they come up with at least one 3-inch-long, keepable clam.
With the help of a $60,000 grant from the National Coastal Resources Research and Development Institute - and a lot of advice and support from officials with North Carolina Sea Grant's Marine Advisory Service - Midgett's tourism business began with a bang. During the first two weeks of June, more than 200 recreational clammers raked the sandy bottom of the shellfish farm. Before noon Thursday, six vacationers already had caught their limit.
Sea Grant spokesman Rich Novak said the grant was awarded to help commercial watermen combine aquaculture efforts, fisheries research and seafood production with new business ventures for vacationers. He hasn't been able to locate any other you-rake-it clam farms in the country - and knows there aren't any others east of the Mississippi River. He says farms like Midgett's are the wave of the future.
``I think you'll see more and more of tourism and commercial fishing coming together,'' Novak said Friday. ``It's an all-new concept. Clamming is something that's always been popular around here. But this farm is an entirely new attraction for the area. And the educational aspects of it will be extremely beneficial.''
About 10 percent of the grant money is being used for administering funds through North Carolina State University. Other money is paying graduate student Harrison P. Bresee III, who is helping Midgett run the clam farm this summer and plans to write his master's thesis on the project. The rest of the money paid for new, wooden steps leading from Midgett's docks to the tea-colored water; picnic tables for clammers to dine on; and 25 new clam rakes that look much like garden tools.
``This is the deepest I've ever been in water - except for a swimming pool,'' said 14-year-old Julie Lindvay, a vacationer from Erie, Pa., who waded into the sound until the water hit the bottom of her bathing suit. ``These things don't bite, do they? I like to eat 'em. I've never caught my own dinner before. I wouldn't want to have to do it every day.
``But this is really fun.''
Most of the clamming grounds are in an area Midgett has already farmed commercially. He spawns adult clams in his hatchery, producing millions of baby clams smaller than a grain of rice each spring. After six months, when the clams are the size of a nickel, he sows the seedlings. He covers them with netting to keep crabs from eating them. Three years later, the clams are ready to harvest.
Midgett rakes the area himself until he's gathered as many inch-thick clams as he can. Then, he opens those grounds to tourists, who rake in the rest. Besides the rake-rental fee, customers pay 22 cents for each clam they catch.
Throughout North Carolina, watermen marketed 902,259 pounds of clam meat - without the shell - last year. That netted $5.9 million on the market. Most of those clams were caught commercially in state-owned and operated waters.
About 10 percent, however, were raised in farms like Midgett's on leased land. There are 295 shellfish bed leases throughout the state. In 1994, those 2,200 rented acres yielded 12,103 bushels of clams.
Anyone can apply to lease shellfish bottom land. There's a $100 filing fee. Then people pay $5 per acre per year. Leases last for 10 years. Watermen have to produce a minimum of 25 bushels of shellfish per acre per year to retain their rental property.
``The program is designed to take relatively unproductive bottom areas and make them commercially viable,'' said Jeff French, a shellfish leasing spokesman for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. ``The public can clam anywhere in the state for free - as long as it's not on land already leased.''
And recreational clammers can ply their rakes year round.
Midgett's leased land is marked by red flags flying from wooden stakes in the sound area between his house and a condominium complex. He's planted 7,000 clams on about five acres already this year.
He's sold bushels of the bivalves to Outer Banks eateries. Others wind up in his retail shop on the site. And this year, many have been claimed by customers who rake them into their yellow mesh bags.
``I'm glad people are enjoying learning about clamming and catching their own seafood out here,'' said Midgett - who operates the only aquaculture enterprise on the Outer Banks. ``Raising your own seafood probably will be the way a lot of commercial fishing has to go in the future. Just about every species needs to have someone raise and help reproduce it if it's going to survive. You can't just keep taking and not put any back. If farmers didn't re-plant corn, we would have wiped out this country's corn crop a long time ago.
``Nobody really thought we'd last very long when we got started with this clam farm. People were questioning the idea of turning it into a tourist attraction, too.
``Now, I sell clams all over the area, and vacationers travel an hour or more to come rake their own. People around here know who I am. I'm the guy who's raising clams.'' ILLUSTRATION: Can you dig it? Yes, you can!
DREW C. WILSON photos
The Virginian-Pilot
From left, Beth Lindvay, Rick Raskowski and Julie Lindvay, all of
Erie, Pa., go clamming at Kevin Midgett's farm in Pamlico Sound. A
North Carolina marine official says it may be the first
rake-it-yourself clam farm in the country.
Keeper clams must be at least 3 inches long. Visitors may take home
up to 100 clams at a cost of 22 cents each.
FARM FACTS
Kevin Midgett's dig-it-yourself clam farm is the only one on the
East Coast, according to state fisheries officials. It's located one
mile north of Hatteras Village, on the Outer Banks, on the west side
of N.C. Route 12. It's open seven days a week throughout the summer
from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Customers can rent rakes for $3 each, receive a mesh bag to carry
the clams in, and get free instructions on how to search for the
shellfish and keep up to 100 clams each. Clams cost 22 cents each if
you find them yourself. Children under 12 can clam for free.
Clamming is not strenuous and is accessible to anyone who can walk
through thigh-deep water for about 10 minutes. Most people catch
their limit of clams in under an hour.
For information, call the Hatteras Village Aqua Farm at (919)
986-2249. by CNB