Manila clams are useful creatures in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but filling your inventory with these little clams is hard work.
Is there a faster way to get clams, and what can you do once you’ve got an inventory full of them? Let’s see!
Where do you find manila clams in ACNH?
Manila clams only spawn on beaches beneath the surface of the sand. To find one, look for wet sprays of sand. There are intervals between sprays, so take your time walking across your shores.
Once you see a spray, wield your shovel and dig where the black spot is coming from.
Voila! A manila clam!
How to get manila clams fast
The trick to more manila clams? Pick your best beach.
Rather than wasting time running around your island to hit up all the beaches, only hunt for manila clams on your largest, widest beach.
This way you can maximize energy and time by running up and down it. By the time you arrive at the bottom of your beach, you can bet more clams would have spawned at the top!
If you’ve hit a metaphorical manila clam wall and they’re not spawning, walk into a building and come out again to help refresh the beach.
To work even smarter, terraform your island so that each river mouth is stunted or has a bridge over it, so you have easy access to the neighboring beaches.
How do you get manila clams to spawn?
Manila clams spawn off-screen, therefore you need to run away from the area you want a manila clam to spawn.
You don’t have to run halfway across your island, though. Going from one end of your beach to another should be far enough to trigger manila clams to spawn.
Unfortunately, there’s no hack (that we know of) that forces manila clams to spawn quicker.
Digging up your beach around a few spaces in the hope that manila clams will be forced to spawn there doesn’t increase spawn rate, so don’t waste your time!
Some players have reported that holding your shovel whilst roaming the beach may increase spawn rate, as does the rain, but these are currently unproven theories.
What to use Manila clams for in ACNH?
Manila clams have two uses:
- Recipes
- Fish bait
Manila clams are the only material needed to create fish bait. One clam crafts one bait, and you can sell the bait for 200 bells (double the price of the manila clam) at Nook’s Cranny.
Fishing bait is a great way to catch rare fish, especially if they only spawn in certain spots like the pier or tier-three rivers.
A fish is guaranteed to show up if you use bait, which is why it’s perfect to help you achieve the Cast Master challenge!
As of 2022, there are also three cooking recipes that use manila clams:
- Clam chowder
- Seafood pizza
- Pesce all’acqua pazza
(Psst – check out our guide on what to do if you can’t seem to unlock cooking in ACNH!)
Plus, if you dig up manila clams you’ll be working towards the Clam and Collected Nook Miles challenge!
So I think we can all agree, these versatile little clams are much mightier than they seem at first glance!
Do Manila clams spawn on Mystery Islands?
For some reason, manila clams don’t spawn on Mystery Islands. This includes any islands you visit via Kapp’n Tours or using Nook Miles Tickets.
Where can I buy Manila clams ACNH?
Unfortunately, there’s nowhere you can buy manila clams in Animal Crossing without using Nookazon or setting up trades with other players.
In ACNH the only way to get your hands on manila clams is to dig them up yourself!
Do Manila clams count as shells in Animal Crossing?
You might have noticed that manila clams aren’t stackable in your inventory, and they also can’t be ‘dropped’ when you want to get rid of them – instead, they’re ‘released’ -.
This is because manila clams technically count as creatures in ACNH, despite not being able to donate them to Blathers in the museum!
Easily get manila clams in ACNH
As you can see, the ACNH devs haven’t made it easy for us players to farm manila clams. However, if you pick your widest beach and run along it with a shovel in hand, you should be able to fill your inventory pretty quickly.
Once you’ve got your manila clams, head over to a workshop bench and craft fish bait, which you can either sell for double the bells or use to catch a rare fish!