I was raised on the beach by Puget Sound (Puget's Sound, actually) In the 40's we could easily dig geoducks in the ten pound range. We'd grind the necks for chowder, fillett and fry the meat in the body, very sweet and delicious. My Father came very close to drowning because of a geoduck. It was on the three mile spit of Dungeness. He'd reached into the whole to grab the clam and it clamped on his finger. The tide was coming in very fast and the hole filled up. He was laying on the beach, his arm jammed in the whole yelling for me to get a knife and cut his arm off. The water was rising around his mouth and I was trying to hold the water back with my hands so he could breath. At the last minute, he managed to pull his arm up. He lost most of the flesh on that finger ... a true story!