tonging

Updated: May 3, 2025

They call that 'tonging' oysters, an' the thing he uses is called the 'tongs." "I've been wondering," said Colin, as they passed over the bay and he noted again all the lobster-pot buoys which had interested him so greatly on the way to New Bedford, "I've been wondering whether there was any crabbing done up this way?"

Francis Rolt-Wheeler - The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries

The abundance of oysters still impressed travelers. In the extract to follow, Francis Louis Michel of Switzerland speaks of the method of tonging oysters in 1701, but note that he says, "They usually pull from six to ten times."

James Wharton - The Bounty of the Chesapeake: Fishing in Colonial Virginia