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Crayfishing

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Events Weather Writer's Cafe City Profiles Life in the Desert Local Happenings

Home Animals Desert Map Photography What's New?

Events Weather Writer's Cafe City Profiles Life in the Desert Local Happenings

Crawfish, Crawdads, Mudbugs

If you're like us and you like fishing in the desert, then you need to look into "Crayfishing". It's a sport that is not as well known as fishing for different fish species, but if you missed out on this, shame on you! These are fairly easy to catch and they taste great. After all they are fresh water lobsters? If you want to fish, then here's an article on that HERE

Have you ever been fishing in a lake, pond or river and noticed crayfish shells near the edge of the water? Bass love to eat them. So do people.

Crayster Introduction Video

Bait: Oily fish like Salmon (number one choice), trout and tilapia. The smell of some fish might actually scare them, bass for instance.

This is a great sport and it ends with some great eating. We stumbled onto this sport many years ago, and thought our readers would like to consider crayfishing too. There is an over abundance of crayfish in the lakes and ponds of the southwest, so give it a try.

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Our first encounter with crayfish was while fishing in a high country lake in the Sierra Nevada Mts. in Ca. But they are in almost all the lakes and ponds in the West and Southwest. Linda pulled one up that had latched onto a worm.

At first we pulled them up with just a worm on a hook and later we used chicken meat (not the best bait) but as you can see it worked. After a couple hours we'd caught a mess of them (shown here).

This was the largest one we caught, next to a 6 inch ruler. Don't forget about the meat in the claws! We like to steam them and then dip them in melted butter. They were good.

There is a whole culture of people out there that fish for Crayfish, let's take a look at the guys that really know how to do this and their methods for doing this the right way. The "Crayster Way" Meet Ash and Mike!

Things you should know!

Traps: while pulling them in using a baited line (w/ fishing pole) works, the best method is to use a trap. Crayster makes their own traps and is in the process of patenting theirs.

License: every state is different, please check with the fish and game in the state you plan on fishing in. Also laws on trap sizes and shape vary.

Size / quanity limits: Once again check with the local fish and game. Most states have no limits. In some states it's illegal to throw any back. In Colorado there are size limits.

Signal Crawfish: A species of crawfish that originated in Idaho, Montana and Oregon. They are large and have a blue-green part on their claw. They are really good to eat.

The above information is courtesy of the team at "Crayster". They have a lot of videos on YouTube you'll find interesting if you decide to do some crayfishing yourself! YouTube Link Don't forget to subscribe.