I like watching outdoor wildlife shows, particularly “The Deadliest Catch,” about the guys who fish for crab in Alaska. But there are many of them, and anytime I’m flicking through channels I’ll stop and see if the hunter or fisher gets his or her quarry. Saturday I saw a guy shoot a wild pig in Patagonia, and the number of bass, salmon, walleye and trout caught on TV actually exceeds their number in the wild. I’m starting to suspect there are highly-paid fish actors who make a living out of getting caught time and time again, flopping desperately, gasping dramatically, and then swimming away with abandon after finally being released after having been unhooked and manually posed for the TV cameras. There must be Piscatorial Academy Awards, but you have to live under water to see them. Fish celebrities are probably followed everywhere by schools of gilled paparazzi.

I’d like to get one of those TV shows myself but virtually everything is taken. There are dozens of TV fishing shows and the hosts go after every sea dweller imaginable, from sharks to grunion. Hunting shows run the gamut from rogue elephants to ground squirrels. It seems that every creature on earth has a TV show devoted to its killing, except one.

That’s why I’m considering filming the first outdoor TV show on the lowly clam. I’ll call it “National Clammer.” During Saturday’s low tide my clam digging buddy got caught in the ferry line, so I went out by myself and imagined the first episode of National Clammer, which of course has to be dramatized quite dramatically for the jaundiced TV audience of chip-eaters.

First thing I did was flop down on the beach, letting the bucket and shovel rattle on the rocks. My eyes scanned the low-tide horizon for the tell-tale sign of the wild clam: a stream of water shooting into the air. “There’s one!” I imagined yelling at the TV crew, as I grabbed for the bucket and shovel, clambering to the spot from whence the clam spit appeared. I dramatically marked an “X” over the spot with my shovel, and furiously started digging.

Keeping the TV audience in mind, I dug like a maniac, throwing sand and rocks over my shoulder and toward the TV camera. It was supposed to look like a blizzard of dirt as sweat poured from my brow. “I’m getting close,” I huffed. “I can sense a clam, in fact, I see broken clam shells, victims no doubt of other predators, like eagles and the evil clam driller. It won’t be long now!”

Having dug the hole sufficiently deep, I literally jump into it, for the sake of the camera. I turn the shovel sideways, scraping the sides of the hold, to expose the wily clams hiding under the surface. Triumphantly, I pick up a fat butter clam and hold it up to the camera. “Got it,” I exclaim. I squeeze the shell, and the clam squirts into the TV lens. I imagine the chip-eaters back home blinking in amazement.

I keep shoveling and throwing clams out of the hole, managing to literally bury myself in the process. The last shot is of my arm sticking out of the beach, a cockle clam firmly grasped in my fingers. The camera fades away, and the first episode of “National Clammer” is in the can.

After the commercial break, I pick up the two dozen clams scattered on the beach. To show mercy and display my sportsmanship, I carefully release each back into the wild, as the tide comes in and covers up the hole for the next clam adventurer to find. After all, us outdoor TV hosts have to show we really care about nature.