Foraging for Seafood

Crazyivan 1979

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but here it goes.

Been a lover of fish, especially shell fish (mussels, prawns, oysters etc) for as long as I can remember.

Just read an article in the guardian, about foraging for mussels, cockells and the like.

Going out to a beach (they were talking about Wales) in the middle of the night on a low tide, just after a high tide, and just go around picking all these varieties up off rocks, jetties and so on.

Sounds like something I'd love to try; I love fish and free things, so would be ideal!!

Anyone have any knowledge of this? tried it? know of any good locations on the east coast? And what varieties I could expect to find?

Any help appreciated....Thanks.

mackeminexile

I've been watching various survival and cookery shows recently and have had exactly the same thought. I fish the east coast round Dublin quite a bit and would be nervous of eating the shellfish to be honest. By their nature they siphon the seawater to get their food so it pretty much follows that there may be some bad stuff inside them. Having said that, I have managed to collect razor and fry it and it was amazing! I do have an iron stomach though.....

All said, I would try to move more to the north or south of Dublin itself for shellfish collection - Loughshinny etc or down towards parts of Wicklow.

mawk

funny, i was down on fountainstown last weekend and the tide was waaay out. so i was hopping across the rocks pointing out all the different fish/shellfish to my girlfriend whom one would not call marine biologically versed. and I was thinking that it might be great to collect some mussles, razorfish and even some limpets and make a meal,

I was thinking of doing it this weekend. I can blame the economic climate pushing up the price of food, but im pretty sure that its just ray mears to blame

Zzippy

For anyone thinking of doing this - yes, its a great way to get fresh wild seafood - just be careful that its safe to eat! Occasionally marine algal blooms can cause a buildup of toxins in shellfish - they filter the algae from the water and concentrate the toxins in their flesh. Some of these toxins can cause very nasty food poisoning - see here for info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellfish_poisoning

AFAIK the Marine Institute carry out regular sampling of shellfish from bays around the country and put notices on their website when a bay is closed for shellfish harvesting for health reasons. Worth checking with them to see its ok.
www.marine.ie

Also, collecting oysters by hand is illegal in ROI, you need an oyster dredging licence to collect wild oysters, and as with all wild food, harvest sustainably i.e. don't clean out one area of all the shellfish you are picking, leave some to regenerate the population.

CJhaughey

Zzippy wrote: »

Also, collecting oysters by hand is illegal in ROI, you need an oyster dredging licence to collect wild oysters.

Have you any more information on this? I have never heard of this law.
I know that in SAC's and in Farmed areas you will run into difficulties but not for handgathering oysters for personal consumption.

Zzippy

Can't find the exact legislation but under the 1980 Fisheries Act the Regional Fiheries Boards were given responsibility for enforcing the regulations in regard to oysters, which include no hand picking, fishing by licensed dredge only, and a minimum size. The fisheries boards prosecute people every year for hand picking oysters. In fairness, most of these prosecutions would be for people picking commercially - to sell their catch - and someone picking for personal consumption would probably just get a warning (and have to put their catch back!).

mawk

mawk wrote: »

funny, i was down on fountainstown last weekend and the tide was waaay out. so i was hopping across the rocks pointing out all the different fish/shellfish to my girlfriend whom one would not call marine biologically versed. and I was thinking that it might be great to collect some mussles, razorfish and even some limpets and make a meal,

I was thinking of doing it this weekend. I can blame the economic climate pushing up the price of food, but im pretty sure that its just ray mears to blame

just as a follow up, last weekend i did indeed go and collect me some shellfish. damn tasty too

stevoman

the book entitled ray mears wild food, which is a book from the show has some great knnowledge on forraging for sea food.

josey_whale

stevoman wrote: »

the book entitled ray mears wild food, which is a book from the show has some great knnowledge on forraging for sea food.

I agree here. As much as I like Ray Mears, this book is spoilled by some disgraceful editing... It's full of spelling and gramatical errors... that said it's a good reference book

Yama

Do some research on the web like www.marine.ie, www.sfpa.ie etc and you'll find some more info.

Generally malahide and up to balbriggan are ok and class B but you should avoid months without an R as these are most susceptible to algae blooms.

The A, B, C classification I think refers to E.Coli levels and Class C shoudl be avoided and Class B cooked.

Most shellfish should be left to purify themselves. You can also google how long to purify various shellfish. Clams should be left overnight in a shallow tray of salt water, 35g salt per litre I think and they'll clean themselves out. Needs to be shallow to let oxygen get to them. Razor clams I think, won't last as long and you should give them 6 hours. Mussels are longer and I think the farms leave them in tanks for 48 hours with flowing UV treated water.

There's a good book in the river cottage collection called Edible Seashore but unfortunately it gives locations in UK only but covers plants and crustaceans too. If you spend a bit of time on the web you'll find shellfish designated area maps etc. for Ireland locations etc. Mainly on West and South coast. East is only malahide, balbriggan/skerries, Dundalk bay, clarlingford lough and wexford harbour

Minimum landing sizes apply to most native species so you should check these also to maintain stocks. Like for example native species are protected in UK but non native are fair games, I presume the same here, eg. Native oysters are protected but the introduced Pacific oysters are fair game, and most likely what you've eaten before.

All the above is from memeory after flicking through Edible Seashore and the web, that's as far as I got and never got around to going out and searching, mainly due to being on the East Coast and not too fond of the water quality. Might try for razor clams in skerries or malahide. I presume you don't need a license or anything?

jArgHA

mawk wrote: »

just as a follow up, last weekend i did indeed go and collect me some shellfish. damn tasty too

Did you collect any razor for eating by any chance mawk? If so any chance you could divulge the information of where you got them? I'm curious to see what these are like, they don't look the most appetising by any means but I've heard they are very good to eat.

tricky D

Yama wrote: »

Generally malahide and up to balbriggan are ok and class B but you should avoid months without an R as these are most susceptible to algae blooms.

Most shellfish should be left to purify themselves. You can also google how long to purify various shellfish. Clams should be left overnight in a shallow tray of salt water, 35g salt per litre I think and they'll clean themselves out. Needs to be shallow to let oxygen get to them. Razor clams I think, won't last as long and you should give them 6 hours. Mussels are longer and I think the farms leave them in tanks for 48 hours with flowing UV treated water.

There's a good book in the river cottage collection called Edible Seashore but unfortunately it gives locations in UK only but covers plants and crustaceans too. If you spend a bit of time on the web you'll find shellfish designated area maps etc. for Ireland locations etc. Mainly on West and South coast. East is only malahide, balbriggan/skerries, Dundalk bay, clarlingford lough and wexford harbour

I'd be careful about the Malahide to Balbriggan bit. There's still some outfalls pumping raw sewage between them. Howth is also still pumping untreated sewage, but is due to stop anytime in the next few weeks once the sewerage to Sutton is completed. For example, there are strict regulations for commercial mussels in this area. They can only be fished under permit and during certain months. There are mats laid down off Rush each year but the water is polluted so the mats are lifted and transferred to Carlingford and Wexford and relaid in clean waters. It takes 4-6 months for them to get clean and then only the french will take them.

So if it takes 4-6 months to get cleaned, it kinda tells you how important it is that you only pick them from really clean waters. Could do worse than asking the local fishermen how clean the waters are.

Yama

that info was off the latest released classification I could find online, can't remember the name of the site but it was the irish fisheries or something and it was for razors and one other shellfish only in those areas. Maybe it's that some absorb more than others with mussels being very susceptible. The 2009 info is that Razors from malahide, skerries, gormanstown/laytown are Class B, possibly A at certain times. Class C means they have to be taken and relaid and tested but Class B means okay once cooked through. Class A is ok raw. Maybe the commercial guys dredge for them further out to sea, so could be that only ones the likes of us can find are toxic

actually just remembered www.sfpa.ie. If you click on the seafood safety tab and then classsified production areas, there's list of them and some locations have further links to maps

coolwings

It is not a good idea to forage for food in the discharge plume of a city of 1 million people.
Dublin Bay may be "clean", but that is only an average finding.
Are you so well informed that you can remember the pollution "accidents" of the past 50 years, and expert enough that you can calculate exactly where the discharge finally settled?
Many places have, just under the surface, a nasty layer of toxic sediments laid down over the past 200 years, "capped" by a recent thin new cleaner sediment layer from the past 5 years. The top layer is very thin, and after certain weather events can become exposed for a while and find it's way into the food chain for a while without the need for a "fresh " pollution incident.
I suggest a self imposed radius of safety margin be drawn on the map. Like eg 5 miles from Dublin, or 1 mile from Bray, DunLaoghaire, Balbriggan etc. Use this when collecting bottom filter feeding permanent resident organisms like shellfish. Migratory organisms like mackerel for example are just visitors and could be exempted from this safeguard.