Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Catching Native Crayfish To Eat

Ok we have a pond that is full of crayfish, so much that they steal the FHM off our hooks while going after LMB and other fish.

I may try to move some to another pond or two but that may be a waste of time as they would probably be a quick snack.

So my question is would it be ok to catch these to eat, and if so what is the best time to do so and should they be handled or purged in anyway before consuming?

Thanks

YES!!! Eat them!! Tasty morsels. Make sure no one is allergic to shellfish before eating them. There are plenty of crayfish recipes to use for these finger licking goodness.

Time to be creative and make some crayfish traps. Doesn't take much. I use 1/4" chicken wire fencing from the local store, and make a 2'x2'x4' trap in the past to catch the crayfish from the local lakes, while I float tube and fish throughout the day. At the end of the day, I have fish and crayfish to eat for dinner, that is, if someone didn't still my trap.

My wife has relatives in England who swear to use the head of a trout for bait to catch the crayfish. I have not tried but will very soon. I guess any fresh high oil fish works the best for bait.


Cheers Don.

Any receipies? Purging time? Sea-food type sauces?

Hey, were you ever able to identify the species of crawfish?
I think most species should be edible.
Yeah, always purge... it helps clean mud and get get rid of the excrement
http://www.wikihow.com/Purge-Crawfish

Also, I wonder if tossing a couple of 6/7 lb LMB would help out. Maybe the craws are good at hiding, or maybe water is too muddy for the existing LMB

Best way to purge is to have them sit inside a recirculating system with filtered water (primarily from their old excrement). You can feed them dried food if you want, or just toss a whole bunch of hotdogs in. They'll love it. It makes them taste a bit sweeter too. Purging time is between 4 to 7 days. The longer, the better.

Recipes? Ohhhh man..cajun style, steamed. OR, jalapenos, sliced, steamed using brine water (3 tablespoon of salt per 1 gallon of water). There plenty of crazy recipes out there. But nothing beats southern cajun style. I'm drooling..

I haven't had them in years. It takes time to make them right -- and delicious.

We would start 25-50 of them in a 2 gallon bucket of fresh water, with about a cup of cornmeal, for at least 30 minutes. If any looked dead -- like they were floating -- we threw them out.

We'd drain the water, and add enough water to cover the remaining live crayfish. Then we'd stir in about a cup of salt. We'd let them soak in that for about a half hour. We'd dump out the salt water and poop they left for us, and we'd put in more fresh water. We'd do this several times, until there was very little poop in the water. We'd do this two, three, maybe four times.

Then we would boil a mixture of half water and half vinegar in a tall, but small pot. We used an old-style coffee percolator pot. We'd add "crab boil" or "Chesapeake Bay Seasoning."

We'd drop them in, let them boil for about five minutes, or until they all turned red. We'd turn off the heat and let them soak for at least another 30 minutes. Then we'd drain them.

Break them in half. Suck out the front. Enjoy the tail.

Dang, this nostalgia makes me think I need to start a crayfish pond!

Any fish head will work or even fish backbones. We use to use beef "melts" which are the pancreas and very bloody as bait which they still sell here near New Orleans but not sure if they are available in other areas of the country.

I've been using a powder mix in the crawfish, crabs, shrimp that I boil that is made by Zatarains. One gallon bottle is meant for 40 lbs of seafood but will make the food VERY spicy. I use about 2/3 of a gallon. If interested, you can likely order some on the dang ole internet.

Most folks around here do purge using a saltwater mix (1 container of salt to 40 lbs of crawfish) for about 1/2 hour just prior to dropping into the boil. Personally, I don't think it works very well and it can kill the crawfish if left too long in the saltwater so I don't purge any longer.

I hope your enjoy your crawdads!

The last time we went fishing at the crawdad pond as I call it now, I threw out some aquamax to see if I could get some takers as I do whenever we go.

I saw some activity but could never make it out, then right before we left I noticed it was the crawfish coming up and getting the AM 500.

We have removed a few 3 pound LMB from this pond but have not caught much of anything else. A few GSF which I thought would take the pond over as they breed like BH, but have not seen that many.

I also put in some RES and BG to try and get them started but no luck yet.

Would actually like to add some Red Swamp Crayfish to this pond and just raise them to eat since we have not had much luck with fish.

catmandoo, what does the cornmeal do? And did you put more salt in with the new fresh water?

Chicken livers work awesome to catch crawfish in traps