Recently, I sat down with a clammer whose family has been clamming for over a hundred years. We discussed the importance of horseshoe crabs to her family income. She uses them as bait for killies, whelk(conch), and eels. They are the only viable bait. The crab is quartered and put in collection pots to lure its prey.There are only six weeks during the year in which this bait can be gathered, and then they swim out to the deeper waters. They return to the same place to breed. This clammer has collected from the same spot since childhood, she is now in her 60’s. Are there as many as there used to be? “No, but the numbers are good,” she told me. I was told by a member of The Nature Conservancy that the daily limit is 200 per licensed person. The average bayman requires 1,500 per season. New J