re: rangia clams to completely clean Lake Pontchartrain in 5 days

Fond memories of Lake Pontchartrain:

When I was a kid I used to drag the eel grass with my minnow net and catch 30-40 pipe fish for my aquarium. Never caught any seahorses.

Not to mention wade fishing for trout in the fall in eel grass out past Little Woods by Little River. Anybody know if those grass beds have regenerated? I think the powers that created the "New Orleans East" development blocked the Little River and screwed up that ecosystem.

My dad would buy a bucket of clams for fifty cents on Elysian Fields just past Robert E. Lee headed north. He would chip off a corner of the shell, with a chipping hammer, to expose some meat and use a handful of clams to bait up spots to shrimp off the steps out on the lakefront. Using a cast net he would catch enough shrimp to fill the freezer for most of the year. Latter in life I found out that hammer was used knock off flux from a weld. Hell, I though it was invented to take off the corner of a clamshell. When the shrimp disappeared dad blamed the dredging for clams for screwing up the lake. It seemed like ever time you drove toward Little Woods the industrial canal draw bridge was up letting several barge loads of clams leave the lake and motor south into the canal.

Sunday mornings dad would drop me off at Sunday school and he would go fishing. I would have to walk back home about 5 miles. Sometimes, when I got home, there would be the BIGGEST trout you ever saw with their heads and tails sticking out of the sink. I knew we were having baked trout when the big ones were bitting. And, that might also explain why I don't have a religious preference.

Excuse my ignorance, by are these native?

He is a hard worker