Digging for shellfish
on Noirmoutier island

• Avoid picking up burrowing shellfish (clams, razor clams, cockles, etc.) from the sand. They can carry disease. 
• Once you've finished fishing, rinse your shellfish in seawater.
• Eat them within 24 hours.

Before setting off armed with your landing net and your boots, remember to check that the sanitary conditions at the fishing sites are optimal, by consulting the ARS des Pays de la Loire website, which is updated in real time.

CHECK THE SANITARY CONDITIONS FOR FISHING ON FOOT

• La Guérinière and Pointe de la Loire headland: clams, cupped oysters and crabs.
• L’Épine and Pointe du Devin headland: clams, winkles, mussels and pink shrimp.
• Le Vieil and L’Herbaudière: pink shrimp, winkles, clams, crabs and cupped oysters.
• Gois Passage: cockles, winkles and clams.

SUGGESTED RECIPE: steamed clams

Ingredients: Clams, 2 cloves of garlic, butter, white wine.

1) Soak the clams in a bowl of clear, salted water for 30min, then rinse. 
2) Meanwhile, chop two cloves of garlic. 
3) When the clams have drained, fry a knob of butter in a pan, add the garlic and brown. 
4) Throw the clams into the pan, add 10cl of white wine and leave to cook for 4min, covered. 
5) Stir the mixture from time to time until all the clams have opened.

To the beat of the spring tides with promising tidal coefficients of around 100, fans of shellfish digging invade these areas. Well in advance, they identify the eagerly awaited day on their tide table calendars. The moon is full. The tide will go very far out, uncovering a virtual terra incognita. On these spring tide days, diggers from all over the Vendée converge on the beaches to fill their baskets. Some of them even come from further afield, as far away as Paris! One of the most popular spots to dig for shellfish on Noirmoutier Island is the section between the Gois and the oyster beds between Beauvoir and Noirmoutier.

There, far from the exposed road, a whole crowd of busy bees in yellow or green raincoats are hard at work, rake or shovel in hand, with a basket or pail placed next to their rubber boots. Leaning over their own images barely reflected in what remains of the water, or searching for the slightest little hole in the rippling sand, the diggers lie in wait for their prey. A simple air bubble and they’re off! Kids trying their hand for the first time and less fortunate adults may need to settle for winkles. Once their baskets are full, the smallest catches are thrown back into the ocean in an act of mercy and hope... of finding them grown bigger the next time. On the road home, they imagine the seafood stuffed with garlic butter, eaten raw with a glass of Muscadet or a slice of toast with salted butter, or prepared in an enormous dish of tagliatelle in cream sauce.

CHECK THE TIDE TABLES