Okay...
After reading all the posts and newspaper articles I decided to try it for myself.

We started the day out on Hood Canal crabbing until noonish. Headed to a relatives house out by Allyn and dug steamers until the tide was all the way out.

I spent an hour trudging through the muck looking for a geoduck show. Supposedly a neighbor several houses down got three the day before. So I had confidence, I had my geoduck sleeve, I just didn't have anything that looked worthy of lying in the mud over.

There were plenty of holes that looked big enough, but there wasn't any sign of life.

Anybody willing to share some pointers. Was I at the wrong place? Did I walk over several hundred of them?

Help!

Typically an undisturbed geoduck will have from one to six inches of neck showing above the sand. Their necks are smooth, kind of pink/orange with a dark skin on the outside and without barnacles. Most often you need at least at 2.0 minus tide. I seem to find most of mine in, or near, eel grass.

If you see a big hole and no neck stick, your finger down the hole and you should feel the neck that will immediatly contract.

If you feel barnacles on the neck, it's a horse clam. They taste fine but do not have nearly as much meat as a geoduck.

I saw on another board that theri are tons of them at Illahee State Park. I saw guys with limits this weekend at Seal Rock, Dosiwallips and Duckabush.

Dave is exactly right.

Learn to tell a geoduck show from a horseclam.

After that digging geoduck is easy as long as you are willing to dig tenaciously and get dirty.

Sucessfull digging techniques vary from beach to beach.

Hey they must not be a myth- one replied!

I know there are some good geoduck spots out on the key peninsula/gig harbor areas. I think they must be commercial digs only. But have seen people on the spit digging them. Saw one big truck (not sure who it was) with CRATES and CRATES filled with geoducks. Not sure where they all came from, but assume some came from the spit. They were parked there near the boat launch. So not sure if divers can collect them under the water or not. But they are there. One thing a friend showed me, was to use a 5 gallon bucket with bottom cut out. He would drive the bucket around the geoduck, making it easier to dig out without the sides collapsing on you.

I did my homework as far as digging techique. however, I didn't expect to spend an hour and a half slogging around in the mud not seeing anything convincing.

Thanks for the replies. I'll just keep trying.