Marilyn's Birthday 2012

Whoa! What a busy day we planned for Marilyn's birthday yesterday. Got up early and ventured out onto the clamming mud flats of the Siuslaw River and got us a mess of softshells, called Bay Clams here or Mud Clams. We did pretty well and had the flats to ourselves because this is a tough row to hoe! Walking on the flats is hard enough but if you stop moving you sink even further and become stuck big time. It only took us an hour to get our clams but we were physically drained after that. So we brought the clams home and cleaned them up and steamed them for chowder. Rested just a bit then, headed off for the crabbing dock. I made a stop at the Sportsman tackle shop on the way and picked up a big package I had secretly arranged for a day earlier. I carried it out much to Marilyn's shock and awe and she played let-me-guess until we reached the dock where she opened it up. Marilyn-sized crab traps- three of them- the number each person is permitted to use. She loves crabs and she loves crabbing but the three larger ring traps we throw are too heavy for her especially on the retrieve, so this remedied that issue. And to show me how it's done, she promptly caught 5 keepers in the next couple hours before the tide started running too hard to fish. How many did I catch in the same time period??? Ah, that would be zero! Tons of crabs, but not a one keeper for me. That's my girl!  Now home again to do up the crabs, then off again to town to the Waterfront Deport for dinner. The Depot is a very small riverside restaurant- very nice, and very excellent food at very reasonable prices. Fine dining at value prices on the water- an excellent combination. Derek and Karin had first suggested it and then plenty of locals we met on the docks all said to be sure to eat there before leaving town. Good suggestions all!