Buy live and put in pond. Will they survive and multiply?

Probably but not from a supermarket. I tried that years ago and they all died within days. So, I called a Louisiana crawfish farm. The guy told me that by the time I bought them, they were in bad shape and close to death.

Tim...I always thought this was a good video about crawfish in ponds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18UFiCf5g1M

I bought mine from a local Asian market and a large wholesaler in Dallas.

http://cajuncrawfishco.com/cajun-crawfish-company-live-crawfish/

I feel like they were a snack for the fish, not sure if they multiplied. I'd probably do it again.

You'll hear the possibility of horror stories...I didn't experience any of that.

I have not checked it out yet but heard you can by them online and shipped to you live

Timing of effort might help. You will have mortalities regardless. I would stock a month or so before breeding season to commence and introduce shortly after dark to give them more time to burrow in before sight oriented predators get active. Just a couple females getting off a successful brood can get you started with healthy animals. Stay legal with what is purchased and stocked.

Don't forget to offer the proper habitat. A bag full of crawdads won't last long without plenty of hiding places. The northern virile crawdads that I have seem to be doing very good. I placed about a total of 100 foot long run of 3 to 4 feet wide 4 to 8" rip-rap along the shore and well into the water. My pond is about 1/4 acre.

I suppose that all crawdads that live in water like rock piles, but determine the species you can find and legally loose in your BOW and research what habitat suits them.

There is also a balance between crawdad populations and aquatic plant life. To many crawdads and the veggies get eaten down, maybe to extinction. Don't ask me how to determine what's appropriate...I'm sure each pond is different. I have started to notice the arrowhead in my pond is getting "cut down". Could be deer, beaver, otter, Channing (my dog), or crawdads. It's likely the dog, but crawdads would be my second guess.

My pond is a year old and has lots of crayfish as I get 20+ of them every time I pull the cloverleaf trap I use to catch bullheads. Enough crayfish that I am wondering if I should be pulling them out too since I am trying to get plants and fish established and won't have a bass big enough to eat them for a long time.

I did not stock them - I assume they came from the local creek drainage. Perhaps you already have them and don't know it? try a trap with chicken livers and old dog food. If not, perhaps there is a local creek you could trap them in to stock. That way you would not be transporting a crayfish that isn't already in the local area.

Best way to transport crayfish is in a cooler with a bag of ice and fresh lawn clippings. They will last for days this way.

What kind of crayfish do have in your pond?

Trapping crawdads last year took me back to the age of 10...walking the creek with a trap, net, and a bucket. The two methods I found the most productive...

1.) Crawdad trap from Bass Pro, handful of dry dog food in a sock bread tied to the inside of the cage (otherwise the coons get it out of the cage too easy). Thrown in enough water to cover the trap and then some. Check it once or twice a day and hope the "Creek don't rise".

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/bass-pro...g&gclsrc=ds

2.) A 6x10 dip net with a 4 foot handle dragged quickly over the rocky bottom in the shallows or in conjunction with a herding stick (regular ole' tree limb) in the deeper (1' -2') pools. Using the stick to herd visible crawdads into the stationary net.

I bet I moved 300 crawdads to the pond last year all in all using these two methods. Certainly more than I needed, but being ten again was hard to let go!

Pictures! did you identify what kind they were QA before putting them in? Curious as to what you found in Missouri.

FWIW - I bought some papershells (PSC) online a few years back from Smith Creek. I've never actually gone hunting for them since we stocked them in the pond but we do occasionally catch one when removing veggies from the shallows; so we know at least some survived. We have lots of habitat for them in the form of broken concrete, rip rap, etc.

I have done a cursory look at a "crayfish of MO" publication but it was pretty evident it would take someone better than I to identify mine. I will try to take some photos this weekend.

I did have a MDC fisheries biologist tell me there were two invasive species in the large CORPs lake (Truman) starting about 20 miles downstream of my pond.

I used the linked MO conservation brochure to ID the crawdads in my creek to be Northern or Virile. I hope I did it right. Either way, what's in the creek will also be in the pond, they are 100 yards from one another and the pond dumps into it...

https://huntfish.mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/downloads/crayfish_id_brochure_6-08_0.pdf

Dense cray populations can lead to macrophytes being denuded and can lead to subsequent turbidity issues [nothing left to eat/scuttling around bottom or foraging for nymphs burrowed into sediment]. Important to have apex predator in fishery with gape capable of managing populations...I've experienced this scenario multiple times - tough to get the vegetation re-established and trapping daily for months over the Summer gets really old. Hoping your LMB gape capability allows them to at least hammer the YOY crays and keep the population managed. Turbid ponds that have been historically clear for years are a bummer, too.

AS kids we would catch them with old bleach bottles. We would cut the bottom out of the bottle then by the handle cut holes smaller then the crayfish.

Once we spot the crayfish on the river bottom we would place the bottle behind the crayfish then spook them with our other hand into the bottle. As we scooped up the bottle the water would drain out the holes in the handle and we had the crayfish high and dry in the bottle.

This works very well in a partly dried up river bed with flowing water. We would turn over the rocks the water flow would clear the water leaving the crayfish out in the open.

A well populated creak would give us 100s in no time.

I am partial to use of seines when trying catch them in pinch, even in a pond. To increase catch rate you can bait them like you do Blue Crabs. When density of crayfish is high I have used sinking fish feeds as well as hays.