CHARLESTON - Jeff Hawk wanted a shot at the big clams that have been hiding all year.

So by 6:30 this morning, the Talent man and his son Jesse, 12, were scouring the mudflats of the South Slough in Charleston, digging for clams and trying to take advantage of 2009's lowest tide yet.

"If you figure it's been a year since someone's seen this dirt, this is probably a good place to look," Hawk said. "They've been sitting here, maturing all year."

The pair had a bucket full of gaper clams already, but they were there for the experience more than the seafood feast.

"I like it when you get dirty," Jesse said.

They picked a good time - for digging clams and for getting dirty. This week's streak of minus tides exposes rarely seen parts of the bay and makes for prime clamming.

"Typically the most abundant and largest clams are exposed with those lowest tides. You can get to areas you can't typically get to," said Jim Heinrich, shellfish surveyor for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Charleston. "Some of the areas of the bay - like the North Spit area - you need a minus 2 to get out to those."

Today's morning tide was the lowest at minus 2.3, but Wednesday's will be almost as low at minus 2.2. Minus tides continue through Saturday.

Locals and visitors alike were eager to take advantage this morning. Much like surfers and fishermen, avid clam diggers build their lives around tide charts.

"I watch the tide tables all the time," said John Hass of Boise, Idaho. "It's how I decide when to take my vacations."

Hass was already off the mud by 6:40 a.m. today, holding a bucket of 20 cockles, a small saltwater clam that generally is easy to find by raking the water's edge. He said his small bounty soon would be clam chowder.

"It's not hard at all. You just walk to the water's edge and drag a rake across it," Hass said. "You could dig for two or three hours to get your limit of gaper clams, but it's not worth the work. Basically, I'm lazy."

But most people this morning were looking for gaper or butter clams. By 7:15 a.m., diggers on the beach threatened to outnumber the gulls. They hunched over every hole in the mud, first finding a likely spot, then sticking a finger down the hole to get the telltale squirt. Then it was a mad dig to grab the disappearing bivalve before water and sandy mud forced them to their hands and knees, trying to fish out the creature among a mess of shattered shells and dead clams.

"There ain't no trick to it," said John Such, of Myrtle Point, who has been clam digging on the coast for 30 years. "The bigger the hole, the bigger the clam."

In the few minutes Such had been on the mud, he already had gathered seven gaper clams in his bucket. But other people's luck this morning varied.

Marcia Shigemot, of San Jose, Calif., got on her hands and knees and stuck to the elbow in the muck in search of an elusive gaper.

"You missed one," she said to her digging partner, Brian Leitinger, of International Falls, Minn., who had given up on the hole.

But the shell she pulled out contained only sand. The setback didn't dampen her spirits, though.

"I appreciate this, because you have to work for it," she said.

Leitinger felt the same way.

"I like hunting. This is like hunting on the beach," he said. "And being able to collect things off the beach is pretty cool."

By 7:30 a.m., Leitinger and Shigemot had collected just one large gaper clam, finding more shattered shells than anything else. But they weren't going to give up until they had gathered their dinner.

"It's kind of like a scavenger hunt," Shigemot said. "It's like digging for gold."