crawfish

[Gavin]

Scrabled Eggs, crawfish tails, and fried taters makes a great gravel bar breakfast. If I did em for dinner, I'd boil em with some Andoulle sausage, corn on the cob, red taters, & pearl onions..Beer pairing would be an ice cold Pilsner.

[Terry Beeson]

OK, Gavin... Now you're makin' me HON-GREEE!!!!

A mudbug omlette... KEWL!!!

[gonefishin]

Ok Gavin. What time do you serve?

[WebFreeman]

You guys got me motivated last night and after scouring google, I found an article on Mother Earth News of all places. It's from 1978. I also found the rectangular style, but it's bookmarked at home. I'll try and remember to post it tonight.

CRAWFISH TRAP

The best crawdaddy bait is NOT — contrary to popular misconceptions — a chunk of well-seasoned fish. I have found crawfish to be pretty fussy eaters, and they greatly prefer a fresh fish to almost anything else. In an effort to be consistent and characteristically cheap, I usually bait my traps with a small tin of fish-flavored cat food. I punch a few holes in either and to lot the wildly appealing odor (to a crawfish, at least) wash into the water to attract my quarry.

Once you're ready to fish, weight the trap down with a couple of hefty rocks or anything else that will make it sink. It's imperative, of course, that you tie a rope to the whole affair before you toss it overboard, unless you cherish the thought of swimming after it!

The weighted, baited trap can then be tossed into water practically anywhere, just as long as the water is relatively pollution-free. Crewfish live in almost every body of fresh or brackish water in North America, so keep looking until you find a hot spot. The trap is usually left overnight in order to catch the bigger crawfish, which are mainly nocturnal feeders.

When you bring in your catch, thoroughly rinse them, and then pop them into salted, boiling water for about five to seven minutes, after which they will be bright red and quite dead. Break off the tells, and peel and devein them. Eat the 'dads as is or add them to almost any kind of seafood dish you like. Many people also eat the comparatively small but delicious bits of meat in the claws, a morsel that is usually referred to as "nectar" by crawfish devotees. It is a rare and delicate feast. When this trap is so easy to build and use, it's incredible that the rewards from using it can include some of the finest eating to be found anywhere.

This cylindrical trap is constructed of hardware cloth, a rather folksy name for one-half-inch mash galvanized wire. The hardware cloth can be purchased at almost any store bearing the same name and is relatively inexpensive. It's different from most other wires because — when you cut a piece of it with tin snips — little pieces of stiff wire protrude every half-inch along the fresh cut. These little wires are the means by which two pieces of hardware cloth are joined. Push the little wires through the solid wire on the edge of the other chunk of cloth (see illustration) and then bend them around the uncut wire like hinges.

A. To make the body of the trap, take a 20 X 24-inch piece of hardware cloth and roll it into a cylinder. The diameter of the cylinder is eight inches.

B. Connect the ends of the hardware cloth where they meet on the cylinder by pushing the cut wires of one end through a complete course of wire squares on the other and. Fold the cut wires back onto the first end, as shown.

C. To make the tunnels, cut the cloth into a large circle (at least 12 inches in diameter for an eight-inch cylinder). Next cut a smaller inner circle about four inches in diameter.

D. Join the two sides of the tapered cut and you have a tunnel. Overlap the two edges to adjust for the proper size. Wire the tunnel closed and trim off all protruding wires. Wire the tunnel to the cylinder.

E. Cut a six-inch-square access door along the side of the tunnel. Connect the upper edge of the door to form a hinge using the same method as described in instruction B. You can fasten it with any wire hook or rubber arrangement.

[jcoberley]

WebFreeman, Thanks I will try that. It looks simple. I also would like to know about ramp traps for crayfish if you happen to know anything about them. again thanks.

JC

[jcoberley]

P.S. Anyone else that has info to share please do so as I am new to crawdad traping.

[WebFreeman]

Ok, I found this on catfish1.com.

Original post made by William Sipes(Riverrat) on January 7, 2003

The trap shown is 15 inches long by 13 inches wide by 7 inches tall. To make one this size,

you will need a sheet of hardware cloth approx 41 X 30 inches, a handle with nuts, bolts and washers, a pair of wire cutters, and a marker.

First thing, lay out the cloth and cut a piece 15 inches wide and measuring 41 inches long. To cut the 41" piece to fit, measure up 40 inches and make a mark. Go the NEXT box of squares up from the mark and make your cut, just below the line of the top of the squares, which will leave the sides of the squares sticking out like little spikes. It should look like this.

Go back to the end where you started measuring, and measure out 13 inches and make a mark, then up another 7 inches and make a mark. From there, go up another 13 inches and make a mark, then another 7 inches and make a mark. Fold the cloth on these marks, forming the box. Using a pair of needlenose pliers, fold the spikes over into the squares where they meet, attaching the sheets ends together.

Take the remaining piece of cloth and mark out 2 pieces, 7 inches tall by 13 inches wide. On both sides and the bottoms of these pieces, cut them out on the NEXT box above the marks, leaving the spikes sticking out like you did for the box. Place one in each end of the box at an angle to form a ramp, folding the spikes in the bottom over into the squares at the opening of the box, and do the same at both sides. You want a gap of about 1 1/2 inches between the top of the ramp and the top of the box. This allows the crawdads to enter the box, but makes it difficult for them to escape.

Add the handle to the top and it is done. To empty the crawdads, either turn the trap upside down and allow them to crawl out, or cut a hinged lid in the top with a locking device. Total cost for this is less than $10 compared to $30 to $40 for a commercially made trap. When done, it should look like this.

Rat

[gonefishin]

Thats a good looking trap but what I need for my crawdad fishing is the Tim Taylor model. Where can I get a blueprint

[jcoberley]

WebFreeman Thanks so much! I like the looks of the ramp system. I would think it would be better for the crawdads it enter it.

[arowell7]

We've had great success getting crawdads in a trap with wet dog food. Tie the trap to a tree and let it sink to the bottom in about 12-15 feet of water. We've pulled some monsters out that way.