I hadn't been geoducking for years, and have never been geoducking at Dosewallips State Park, so I thought I'd give it a go! A buddy and I camped at the park (very nice campground) and had a great time. Saturday was a -2.1 and Sunday was a -3.1. Nobody got a duck on Saturday. I talked to the ranger on the way out and he said you usually need at least a -3.4 at Dosewallips for good results. However, a limit of oysters and steamers is very easy pickings at Dosewallips so I took a nice consolation prize back to camp.

On Sunday the crowd was much larger and the ducks were showing. I learned a valuable lesson about geoduck digging this day! I had only dug at North Bay (near Allyn) before— there, the sediment is very fine and it's really hard to get your hand on a duck unless you have a metal trashcan (with the bottom cut out), wide PVC pipe, or some other circular structure to keep the sand from re-filling in your hole. However, at Dosewallips, you really don't need the barrier because the sediment is very firm. The tactic that seemed to be most successful was digging a narrow, very deep hole with a posthole digger and shaking the duck lose before/during the hole cave-in. With this method, make the hole about three inches beside the duck's siphon hole, and see if you can trace it down with your hand. I had to chalk Sunday up as a learning experience as I got skunked again. Mainly because my trashcan caved in due to the heavy sediment while over a duck. I tried to free it as the tide came in, but finally had to call it quits after an intense struggle. I had to leave the trashcan stuck in the muck overnight (and felt really awful about it).

I went into work Monday and successfully graveled for most of the day off to get my trashcan back, as I couldn't live with myself littering in Hood Canal. It was a -3.5 tide around noon. I picked up a posthole digger on the way up. I retrieved the trashcan, got the duck it was around, and dug a second duck to boot. I could have gone for a third, but my previous two days led me to share my third siphon sighting to a group of nice teens who were having trouble. They dug it up and were extremely excited as it was their first geoduck. That was probably the highlight of the trip.

In closing, for really good digging a -3.5 is the way to go at Dosewallips. I personally won’t dig anything higher than a -3.5 or -3.4 there in the future. Also at Dosewallips, the trashcan approach isn't needed, just bring a posthole digger.

Pictured:
A happy geoducker!
Scouting for siphons as the tide goes out.

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