COLLECTION
METHOD 1
Salting the razorfish hole can bring them to the surface
The simplest way to collect a bucket of razorfish is by using salt water. Clean out a washing up liquid bottle and fill it with seawater that's got 4 heaped desert spoons of rock salt added to it.
Search the sand looking for the open key hole depression, but treading lightly, then squirt a liberal amount of the salt solution down in to the hole. Move on and locate a few more holes within a small radius of the first pouring the salt water down in to each.
What happens now is that the razors either think the tide has come in and rise in their burrows to feed through their siphons, or they dislike the heavy concentration of salt and rise to try to clear it. Whichever, it makes them poke the tops of their shells above the sand, and providing you use light footsteps, you can approach the razor, but there is a special technique required to actually remove them whole from the burrow.
Grab the razor by the top of the shell, but don't try to yank it out, or you'll end up with an empty shell and the poor razorfish is left naked deep down inside the burrow where it will die. Keep a steady but gentle upward pressure and you'll feel the razor give a little then hold, give some more and hold, but eventually it will come clear and intact.
METHOD 2
Harder work, but still an effective way to collect razors is with a thin tined ladies garden fork.
You need to walk steadily backwards and watch for the squirt of water blowing out of the top of the razors burrow as it dives having felt your weight passing overhead.
As the water blows, move forward and place the fork about 6" infront of the blow hole and quickly dig in towards the burrow at a slight angle and you'll lift the razor clear inside the fork of sand. You need to be pretty quick digging like this and you'll still break a few and completely miss some, but a good digger will average 50 plus over the low tide period.
METHOD 3
Little used and even less written about nowadays is the razor spear. This is a small pointed spear made from metal with a barb on. This is only effective on the common razor because of the shell shape, and not on the smaller sword razor.
The idea is that you stand over the hole and push the spear down the line of the burrow until you feel it pass in to the top of the razorfish. Twisting the spear sideways then fixes the barb inside the top of the razorfish which is then pulled upwards through the burrow.
This is fine in theory, but few anglers find this method easy and many of the razors are lost when the spear breaks the shell. This method also relies on the surrounding sand being fairly well drained and tightly packed. If the holes fill in quickly with collapsing wet sand, you'll find it impossible to follow the line of the burrow.
METHOD 4
Possibly the easiest of all is to watch the weather forecast. Look for a really strong gale that blows for at least a couple of days simultaneously with the lowest spring tides.
The knack is to get down on to the beach about mid way through the ebb tide. If a big surf has done it's job, there should be live razorfish washing up along the ebbing tide line and this will continue right down to the low water line. But you need to be quick, for the local seagull population also know this trick and quickly clean up the live razors.
This type of collecting is best when the ebb tide falls in darkness and seagull activity is minimal. You'll still do well in daylight though, if you're quick.
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