2-1/4-Pound Quahog Wins It

    A mammoth 2.26-pound quahog dug from the bottom of Napeague Harbor earned Edward F. Hoff Jr. top honors in the junior division from that body of water, as well as the whole quahog enchilada, during the annual Largest Clam Contest weigh-offs on Sunday in Amagansett.

    The festivities were held, as usual, at the Bluff Road headquarters of the East Hampton Town Trustees, who sponsor the event. And, as usual, only the most experienced judges were chosen to measure and weigh the contesting bivalves, in this case Milton Miller and Ben Havens.

    With practiced eye, they determined that Jessica James found the heaviest clam in Lake Montauk, a diminutive representative from that water body at 8.7 ounces. Emily Jackson topped the juniors in Lake Montauk with a 7-ouncer.

    Accabonac Harbor was better represented. Nancy Peppard found a 1.85-pound clam to take top honors among adult diggers. Jessica Branche was the junior winner with a 1.43-pounder. In Three Mile Harbor, Tim McAuliffe’s 1.55-pound quahog was the adult winner, and Ethan Stillwachs ran away with the junior title with a very respectable 1.54-pound mollusk.

    Napeague shone once again as the water body with Godzilla potential in the clam department. Mr. Hoff’s monster bested a very respectable clam dug by Cameron McAuliffe weighing in at 1.79 pounds.

    For the third time in the history of the chowder competition, Paul Roman of Montauk brewed up the best-tasting clam chowder, a white chowder, out of a field of 12.

    Free to all the celebrants were hot dogs, clams on the half shell, and vats of the Overton family’s Bonac chowder, which year after year seems to top all those entered in the chowder competition.