I have a trap set out to try and catch some what I assume will be "northern" crayfish in a small seasonal creek behind my ponds. Have half a BG in the trap and nothing yet. Think the water may be a little too cold yet. I want to catch them early before they spawn and put some in my new forage pond. Only has about 6" of water so far, but these crayfish live in a few inches of water in the creek so think it will be ok till rain fills the pond. Will see if I have any luck trapping some.
Hey Snrub,
How did this all turn out? Did you catch some from the creek? If yes, what kind were they? You might have said somewhere and I missed it but, end of the day, what did you end up doing?
We had an exceptionally dry spring. Ended up growing exceptional crops, but because of "just in time" rain with very little runoff.
As a result, the normal flow of small seasonal streams where these crayfish would normally be found was nonexistent. This springs lack of water along with a pretty bad drought last year simply was not good for crayfish reproduction, at least in the areas I checked and would normally expect to see them. They likely were in the larger creeks but did not go there.
Another issue is that I got some PK shrimp and put in my forage pond. After introducing these shrimp, I kind of lost the desire to stock crayfish. At least for a while till I see how the PK shrimp reproduce.
I've had crayfish in aquariums before. Mean little critters. In one case my wife was wondering why her beautiful fluffy tail goldfish had ragged tails and were loosing length. I had put a few very small (1.5" crayfish in the aquarium. We figured it out one day when we seen a crayfish hitching a ride behind a frantic goldfish, the crayfish hanging onto the fish tail with the bigger pincer, and picking off bits and eating with one of the small pincers. I thought it hilarious. Wife did not. Crayfish were removed from aquarium. In another later incident, we had some very small GSF and assorted minnows in an aquarium for our then small kids to observe. They had also caught some small mussels and a few very small crayfish. Like 1" long. I would have just dumped them in the aquarium, but wife went to a lot of trouble making a really nice environment. Got some pond grass/weed of some sort out of the creek, planted it in dirt in containers in the bottom of aquarium, went all out. Really looked nice. The 3 or 4 crayfish proceeded to un-plant all the plants and generally dig all the dirt out of her very carefully planted containers and generally make a mess of things. They arranged things to suit themselves and not my wife.
Crayfish are industrious, mean little critters. I was afraid if I put a bunch of them in with my newly acquired PK shrimp, the crayfish might make a snack of them. So I temporarily gave up on the crayfish idea in favor of the PK shrimp.
Will wait and see how the PK shrimp goes, then may reconsider the crayfish.
We had an exceptionally dry spring. Ended up growing exceptional crops, but because of "just in time" rain with very little runoff.
As a result, the normal flow of small seasonal streams where these crayfish would normally be found was nonexistent. This springs lack of water along with a pretty bad drought last year simply was not good for crayfish reproduction, at least in the areas I checked and would normally expect to see them. They likely were in the larger creeks but did not go there.
Another issue is that I got some PK shrimp and put in my forage pond. After introducing these shrimp, I kind of lost the desire to stock crayfish. At least for a while till I see how the PK shrimp reproduce.
I've had crayfish in aquariums before. Mean little critters. In one case my wife was wondering why her beautiful fluffy tail goldfish had ragged tails and were loosing length. I had put a few very small (1.5" crayfish in the aquarium. We figured it out one day when we seen a crayfish hitching a ride behind a frantic goldfish, the crayfish hanging onto the fish tail with the bigger pincer, and picking off bits and eating with one of the small pincers. I thought it hilarious. Wife did not. Crayfish were removed from aquarium. In another later incident, we had some very small GSF and assorted minnows in an aquarium for our then small kids to observe. They had also caught some small mussels and a few very small crayfish. Like 1" long. I would have just dumped them in the aquarium, but wife went to a lot of trouble making a really nice environment. Got some pond grass/weed of some sort out of the creek, planted it in dirt in containers in the bottom of aquarium, went all out. Really looked nice. The 3 or 4 crayfish proceeded to un-plant all the plants and generally dig all the dirt out of her very carefully planted containers and generally make a mess of things. They arranged things to suit themselves and not my wife.
Crayfish are industrious, mean little critters. I was afraid if I put a bunch of them in with my newly acquired PK shrimp, the crayfish might make a snack of them. So I temporarily gave up on the crayfish idea in favor of the PK shrimp.
Will wait and see how the PK shrimp goes, then may reconsider the crayfish.
LOL! I had one in an aquarium when I was in college a million years ago. Took on the color of the red brick chips in the bottom of the tank. Seemed like it molted all the time and just kept getting bigger. My red tail sharks kept disappearing. One night I saw the crayfish perched in the top of one of the fake plants and it jumped out of the plant as a fish swam by and tried to loop its claws around it trying to catch it. Mean critters is right!
Species classified as Primary burrowing crayfish will still crawl out of a pond filled with great habitat and make chimney burrows. They can't 'help it', It is in their genetic make up. It is what they do when the reproduction urge 'strikes'. Secondary burrowing crayfish rarely burrow and usually crate shallow burrows depending on the species and habitat conditions.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/14/1509:36 AM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
I go out early this morning at 3am to check out what is going on around the ponds. While finding frogs and various FHM's, BG, tadpoles, dragonfly larvae and other critters............. there in the sediment pond............amongst the rocks..........was a crayfish about 3/4" long. I could not believe it. I had been watching for grass shrimp (none seen yet this spring) but seeing the crayfish bowled me over.
Must have moved up from the creek all by himself cause I sure didn't put him there. So looks like I might have crayfish in the sediment pond at least, without even stocking them.
I don't know how close it is to your place, but I grew up fishing the Quivira Scout Ranch lake (by Sedan). Much of the shoreline ranges from sandstone boulders down to small rocks and sand.
Sometimes in the spring on a good day you could catch 50 bass in the 10"-16" range. When you lipped the fish, there would be crayfish feelers sticking up out of the gullet on 48 of the 50 bass. They would also be in the stomachs when we cleaned fish.
I had similar experiences fishing rocky creeks. I don't know about farm ponds without rocks, but I think crayfish are a significant portion of a bass's spring diet from rocky habitat in your neck of the woods.
I am hoping to stock them this year as well. I want to get the pond renovation done, crawfish habitat in place and appropriate vegetation going first. May have to wait till next year but, hope not!
Mark, how much per pound? Did they ship them directly to you or?
Dave the Crawdaddy store happens to be 15 mins from my house, so I ordered two 30 lb bags Friday morning and picked them up Sat morning on the way out to the property. They were $3.25 a pound. I paid just under $200 for 60 lbs. These appeared much better quality and more alive than the ones at the local Asian market.
I have stocked approximately 1200 native crawfish into the pond, I tried trapping but seining worked best. I was not able to find out what species or type of craw I had on the property but I have a lot of them this yr. The size of the craws were from !/4" to 2". I have found none to be over 2" I have no vegetation for them to hide in so I don't think they will make it this year but since they are so small the RES should feast on them. and when the CBLMN go in the pond they will be nailing the craws for sure. And I have about 10 small holes with no chimneys and about 5 with chimneys. But I am not worried about it because I know the CBLMB will take them out lol
Tracy
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
From time to time these interesting crayfish threads pop back up. If Mr. Cody or snrub are maintaining an archive then I would add this slide show link. I know this is a wealth of knowledge on identifying crayfish that is beyond most of us, but I bet Mr. Cody will feel very comfortable reading through this.
I found the pictures of the molt and the more obvious differences in the photos in the adult male and female crayfish to be very helpful. I now know what to look for when the crayfish are 'in berry' as well.
take a look through this interesting presentation.
Great info Canyon! I will add a very useful link to help identify the following species...
Red swamp crawfish (Procambarus clarkii) White River crawfish (Procambarus acutus) Calico (papershell) crayfish (Orconectes immunis) Rusty crayfish (Orconectes rusticus) Virile (northern) crayfish
This Missouri Conservation Document was key for me to make sure that the crawdads I bucket stocked into my pond were the native Virile. You simply can not ID these critters with the everyday photos...
Northern crayfish will eat fish eggs and sac-fry. One study tested the impact of egg predation of Northern crayfish on pumpkinseed(Lepomis gibbosus) and bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) in ponds. In densely vegetated ponds, pumpkinseed had delayed reproduction and lower young-of-year biomass due to crayfish predation. In less vegetated ponds, crayfish prevented bluegill reproduction except in crayfish proof exclosures.
From page 13.
Quote:
Primary burrowers spend most of their adult lives living in a burrow. The Grassland crayfish, Procambarus gracilis, is a primary burrower and may spend 95% of its life in a burrow. The Devil crayfish, Cambarus diogenes, is also a primary burrower spending 80-90% of its life in the burrow though adults or young can occasionally be found in open waters.
Quote:
Secondary burrowers dig burrows to escape drying waterbodies or freezing weather. The Calico crayfish, Orconectes immunis, is a secondary burrower.
Quote:
Tertiary burrowers are crayfish that dig a burrow as a last resort and, even then, it is not an extensive or deep burrow. The Northern crayfish, Orconectes virilis, is a tertiary burrower which often digs a shallow burrow beneath a rock during winter or during drought
Appreciate you guys sharing this.. It confirms the papershells I bought are not papershells, they are in fact Northern Crayfish. I'll have to share this with the farm I bought them from, he swears they are papershells.
Some crayfish info in this thread from last year. While trying to ID the crays in my BOW, I learned one thing: ID is difficult.
Half acre 30 year old farm pond, Mebane NC. Aeration & feeder. LMB, CC, SC, BG, HBC, two no account welfare carp and nine seasonal Tilapia that all the other fish are terrified of.
They sure are hard to identify, took me a year or so to discover the 1200 native crays I put in the pond were Red Swamps. They are not really native to this area but were brought in for farming and then they became the dominant crayfish in this area of Texas. And some of them grew to be at least 6" in size. Today, they are few and far between in the pond.
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
While using a small dip net in a puddle from the overflow of my RES/SMB pond I caught probably a couple dozen tiny crawdads. Quarter inch long. I presume they are Northern's, but would like an ID if possible. I knew the tiny ones would be hard/impossible to ID but I also dipped out a dead adult. I see two crawdad holes right near the overflow where the water ate away down to the holes. I am assuming the dead one (or one like it) likely produced the babies. So if I can get an ID on the adult, chances are the babies are the same.
The ones I caught I transferred into my RES/SMB pond that is choked with bushy pondweed. Hopefully they will "take" and help control the weeds as well as make some SMB food. With all the bushy pondweed hopefully the tiny ones can find plenty of places to hide and not all get eaten immediately. Lots of rock around the shore line also.
I grew up in northern Oklahoma and this crayfish is very familiar to me. As a kid, I spent a lot of time fishing for them with pieces of bacon. It is 'orconectes nais' or the 'prairie nymph' crayfish.
If you can provide enough cover to sustain a population capable of controlling the bushy pond weed ... then they will convert it into free RES/SMB forage. You might try adding cover in annual steps until you find the right balance of crawfish and pond weed. Crayfish will slow down the accumulation of muck in your pond as well.
Last edited by jpsdad; 03/30/2006:41 AM.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
I did not find one that specifically was named prairie nymph. The Prairie Crayfish in Kansas has short stock pincers so it is not that one. The Water Nymph is said to be in the same area as the Northern Crayfish but less common.