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When I was 8 or so, I started to get invited to go down the bay with my Portguese uncles and older cousins to dig. We would target softshell(steamers) and quohogs to cherry stone and slightly larger. We alway got bushell baskets full with maybe 3 men and 5 to six young people working. Had to watch for sunburn of the plumbers crack if you were heavy. Until i was about 12 I was skinny as a rail.The men wouldhave some hot sauce and pretty much all necks were eaten on the spot.
Nobody digging anymore but we do often "remember the old days" while eating purchased ones now.
I kept a bull rake and 60 to 80 feet of stale on my boat for about 20 years. Digging with a bull rake on a sailboat is back breaking work. After a few years I just went back to buying them from the diggers out of Warwick and Apponog and sometimes further down. I also got lobsters direct from the boats down in Newport.
Born in the early fifties, It was a good time to be on the bay
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