East Cook Inlet clam beaches stay closed; the west side is the option

The razor clam beaches Alaskans could drive to are still closed. What's left this season is across Cook Inlet, reachable only by boat or plane.

"The best option for digging razor clams this season will be the Polly Creek and Crescent River Bar beaches in West Cook Inlet," Lower Cook Inlet area management biologist Mike Booz said in May. Neither has road access.

The daily limit there is 10 gallons a person. Everyone digs their own, all clams dug must be kept, and gear is limited to hand, rake, shovel or clam gun.

Diggers need a free household permit first, available through the ADF&G store or the department's mobile app. One is issued per household, everyone planning to dig should be listed on it, and the holder must report harvest online by Dec. 31 even if nobody dug a clam. Miss that deadline and the household cannot get a permit next year. The requirement is permanent, set at the March 2025 Board of Fisheries meeting.

East Cook Inlet beaches, from the mouth of the Kenai River to the tip of the Homer Spit, have been closed to sport and personal use clamming by emergency order since 2015. April and May surveys found about 31,000 adult clams at Ninilchik, 87 percent below the threshold to open a limited fishery, and about 45,000 at Clam Gulch, the lowest ever recorded there and 95 percent below threshold. The department expects the closure to hold for several more years.

Fish and Game attributes the decline to poor recruitment and annual natural mortality running from 40 percent to more than 80 percent at Ninilchik. The cause remains unknown, the department says, though habitat change and predation are likely.