Crawdads

[joegrizzy]

sounds good. i love etouffee.

 

[swampratt]

I dumped another dozen crawdads into the fish tank earlier today and my neighbor came over with me and the wife wanted to see them in the basket.

I had some big ones and she said man those look tasty.
My neighbor said UUUUUU I have only used them for bait.
Wife spoke up and said man you are missing out they are really good eating.

 

[Seadog]

I dumped another dozen crawdads into the fish tank earlier today and my neighbor came over with me and the wife wanted to see them in the basket.

I had some big ones and she said man those look tasty.
My neighbor said UUUUUU I have only used them for bait.
Wife spoke up and said man you are missing out they are really good eating.

I like eating those mud bugs. Mmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmmm.

 

[Seadog]

I have been running jug lines at Tbird lake every now and then and getting bait in the early morning is a little tough sometimes.

Brutal when jugs are not in the water until 9AM.

I decided to catch some local bait.
Crawdads.
There is a creek 130 yards from me and I figured I would make a tubular trap from galvanized hardware cloth.
I have a big roll here and it is on 1/2" square so not too difficult to make.

I made 4 different kinds and the best so far is long tube 8" to 12" diameter and 18" long with opening at each end.

The key is to make the opening like a funnel going into the trap.
This funnel needs to taper down then become 1.5" give or take and make that 1.5" about 2" long going into the trap.

Total funnel length about 4 to 5"

This makes it very hard for the crawdads to escape.
If the funnel is too short they escape easy.

I can't make a tall basket type because the water is 12" deep.
I baited the trap with hotdogs cut into 4 pieces and I did not just toss the dogs in the trap.

I used a bamboo skewer and made a Shish Kabob basically hot dogs suspended in the middle of the trap on a stick.

I used zip ties to keep the sticks in place.

Sorry I still do not have a working camera.

I have been putting my catch in the 55 gallon fish tank in the house.. hope they do not escape.
My Cichlids do not care for 30+ crawdads in their tank.

I will at least have some bait for first bait up on my jugs then get to tossing the shad net.

I have seen small catfish schooling in the creek and many guppies and perch in a couple pools.
Catfish about 2" ling and 20+ in a group.
Pretty cool.

I’ve heard that good old dog food (the hard pebbles, any type I guess) works real good for these mud bugs. Never have put traps out for them. One of these days I’ll try it.

 

[O4L]

When I was a kid we would go crawdad fishing all the time in a small creek and in the big ditches near our neighborhood.

I would sneak some raw bacon from the refrigerator and tie a small piece of it to a string on a stick.

We didn't know you could eat them back then, we were just trying to see who could catch the biggest one and then have crawdad fights with them.

 

[swampratt]

Let my traps soak overnight in the creek.
Got 18 in 1 trap and 5 in another. The one with 5 is a small diameter trap 5"
That was too small as they can escape from it because the entrance is closer to the floor.
Fail.

Bait was gone completely from both traps.

 

[Bocephus123]

Expensive but bacon works very well for catching ol crawdaddys

 

[Bocephus123]

When I was a kid we would go crawdad fishing all the time in a small creek and in the big ditches near our neighborhood.

I would sneak some raw bacon from the refrigerator and tie a small piece of it to a string on a stick.

We didn't know you could eat them back then, we were just trying to see who could catch the biggest one and then have crawdad fights with them.

Beat me too it

 

[swampratt]

I used bacon as a kid also but ate my catch 90% of the time and I have even ate the bacon.
Uncooked.

 

[Bocephus123]

Caught some big ole sunfish on bacon also