Crawfishing

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Anybody do any crawfishing for food? I have started running a dozen pillow traps and have been doing pretty good. Been eating some free red swamps here lately and it has been pretty nice only investing a few bucks in gas for a sack full.

[Chuckle12]

I have always wanted to do that. We have a bunch of crawfish in our duckholes around the structures when the river gets high like this. How hard is it? Where can you find the traps?

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Chuckle it ain't too hard it's definitely dirty work and stinky. The red swamps don't like much current and are better adapted to oxygen depleted backwaters than the white river crawfish so that's a point to keep in mind when looking for them.

It's sorta like that show deadliest catch except on a smaller scale- a difference of 20 yards can be the factor deciding whether you pull 5 lbs at a time or 5 crawfish. Contrary to popular belief they like fresh bait. If its starting to turn, chunk it out. I use shad mostly. I'll also douse some cotton balls in the cheap "dog grade" omega fish oils for scent. But you gotta have something for em to chow on, otherwise they'll look for a way out as soon as they get in and find nothing. And they WILL get out eventually. That's why ya need plenty of bait if you're soaking pots for 4 hours- anymore and I have seen a decrease in catch. I use bait boxes made of the wal mart grilling section vegetable grates. Nothing fancy just something to keep them from feeding from outside the trap.

When it's prime time I'll check em every 30 minutes. But be aware that they will get spooky and shut down with a lot of commotion and lights hanging around , so be prepared to move.

As far as traps go, just be aware of regulations if ya decide to hit public water. Minimum mesh size is 3/4" by 11/16" with entrances no greater than 2". I have a few cylindrical traps and several pillow traps. I hate the pillow traps- they can be finicky. Sure they stack easy, but if you ain't runnin commercial then portability isn't a huge issue. I run 14 traps in a 15 foot canoe fine. If you have stable water levels under 24" deep then pyramid traps are hands down the best at trapping, baiting and checking. Do yourself a favor and buy your traps, you'll thank me later. I am next year. Make sure if the water is stagnant that a portion of your trap is above water so they can get air otherwise they'll die quick.

When I catch them I dump in a cooler over ice with a crack in the lid. They must be kept moist and access to air, DON'T put them in a container with water to where they can't get air. The ice slows em down from killing each other too. Once full, I empty them into a burlap sack and put ice back over them. They'll keep for several days like this. Pack em tight so they won't kill each other scurrying around. That's one reason why crawfish come in tightly packed "sacks".

Also, a long pole with a hook is a must. If for nothing else, for pulling traps. I have learned pissed off and full cottonmouths go hand in hand with crawfish traps. You can count on it. And you wanna talk about rocking a boat- when I pulled my first trap that had a cottonmouth with nothing but his head sticking out. Sonny boy howdya do.. He was dead and half gnawed on by the time I checked it. Kind of funny, he goes in for dinner and becomes dinner by the very critters he ate. Helluva way to go after drowning.

I have enough to feed several of us this weekend. Did I save any money? Maybe a little. But do we save money by catching a few bass on a fishing trip? No. But it's fun to do and they are fine to eat. Plus it's another reason to get outside and learn something that most don't know about. And for sure if you're catching for food it's fishing to the core, not catching. Until you learn a few things. I'm still learning to catch them- I doubt I'll leave that stage anyway.

[Smoke68]

Pretty cool stuff. Your post led me to do a little searching and I found this website: http://www.terrybullard.com/CrawfishMain.html

Check out the Q&A for a lot of good info (or at least it seems to be to someone who is completely ignorant on the subject)

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Smoke that is a good site I read it up and down before I started. It's one of the few places you can find any info on trapping them at.

[SWAG]

Growing up we used to trap them. We made our own traps, pretty much like the ones you see for sale there on the website. We used all sorts of baits. Location is the key. Not just what ditch or hole you are trapping but where in the ditch or hole you are trapping. Also have caught them by hand by running fresh water into a wetland. They will crawl up the bank right to you trying to discover where the fresh water is coming from. We witnessed it during some rains and then simulated same thing with a water trailer. Picked up bunches of 5 gallon bucket loads doing this. Trapping still best since you can be doing other things while trapping. Fresh raw meat of any kind seemed to work best.

[Chuckle12]

I got my hands on 5 pillow traps. Caught a few brim, cut em in half and hung them in the traps. Tossed em out in 1-2ft of water where I've seen em recently. We'll see what happens....

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Do it up! Let us know how it goes.

SWAG, I'm gonna hafta try that, that's pretty neat. And one thing I've learned is having enough traps to test areas. I have had traps 20 feet apart and home from feast to famine or vice versa.

[Chuckle12]

Well, the good news is I caught some crawfish. The bad news is I only caught 6... . I guess you gotta crawl before you walk.

[champcaller]

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Well SWAG, a couple weekends ago I found a cut pond levee that was dumping water into the swamp and tried your tip...you da man!

I ran 11 cylinder traps I made that are about as big around as a standard garbage can and I was getting at least 6 to 7 lbs a pull sometimes much more with fresh caught shad as bait. A couple of times I could barely pull them up over the gunwale of the canoe. I actually only pulled them 4 times. I quit weighing the mudbugs when I got over 110 lbs. I have found that fresh shad will bring them running. I was catching them all up and down the bar pit, but they were definitely more concentrated within 100 yards of the flowing water.

I boiled up 80 or so pounds and we ate till we were sick and I still wound up giving a huge burlap sack full of live ones to a woman who works with my girlfriend. Rinsing crawfish off is trivial. I usually keep em in the sack and hose em off real good then dump in a container and pick the dead ones out. But PROCESSING crawfish and getting the leaves, water boatmen, old bait, etc out is a pain without the proper setup. Especially 100+ lbs of them. I almost needed a bigger pirogue...



And 'member what I said about pissed off cottonmouths? The only downfall to using shad is it seems like snakes come running too. I have only had a couple cottonmouths get in my traps, but the banded water snakes are the ones that will eat a trap out of crawfish and bait. I had several get in my traps but this big boy is one of the biggest I have ever seen. His head was as big as my fist, the pic does him no justice (or my stylish shorts). After I got him out of that trap I barely caught any more crawfish in that particular one. It's no telling how many lbs he had eaten. Crawfish, I have learned even more so, are not as mindless as one might believe.

[greenheadgrimreaper]

BTW Chuckle, those pillow traps can be real real finicky, especially if they ain't made real good. Ya got to make sure the funnels sit just right on the bottom. I ain't too crazy about them. I'd rather just run cylinder traps in fluctuating water conditions. They take up more space, but they stack and store pretty well if they are of uniform size.

[MudHog]

I suggest using 4' pillow traps. If the water turns or gets bad, you will drown crawfish if they cannot get close to the surface for oxygen. Longer traps also help if you have frequent water level changes.

Keep a look out for snakes, both in the traps and on branches.

[SWAG]

Glad the running water thing helped out. It is incredible to see this when it happens. Have seen thousands of pounds crawl out on bank at a single location where water remained running for 2-3 days.

[Wingman]

Interesting thread. I just dumped 70 pounds into the pond beside my house. Would like to get enough in my duck holes to have an eating once a week in the spring.

Pretty good article here. I met her at an NRCS field day and she was doing her research then.

http://www.mossyoak.com/our-obsession/b ... hole-dads-