Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Crawfish to shut up wife

My wife asked, "You have all these ponds, why don't you have any crawfish?" I don't know why I don't have any crawfish. Three ponds have predators so they wouldn't last long but I have one or two others that sometimes dry up that might be a possibility. And I have a small "tilapia pond" that doesn't have large predators.
Is there anything you need to grow crawfish for personal consumption other than throwing some in a pond without predators?

Take a look at these.

http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=9 Craw fact sheets

Brian, my experience with crawdads: On 2 occasions, I have gone to the grocery store and bought about $100 worth of live, eating sized, crawdads and stocked them in a forage pond. I figured it was a no brainer. Prior to an extended drought, they occurred naturally in my creek. Nope! They all went up on the shore and committed suicide by coon.

So, after the last failure, I started reading what I could find out and it didn't answer my questions. So, I started communicating with some Louisiana crawfish raisers. They asked about environment, water quality, aeration, feeding, etc. All of the questions that I'm used to asking and answering about fish.

They told me that, although alive and edible, the grocery store ones are about 90% dying and need to be eaten quickly. They just ain't gonna live and aren't meant as stockers.

I may try it again but will order some fresh ones from the farm. They do quick delivery and I can start with fresh ones. Or, catch some locally and put them in clean, fertile water. I don't anticipate aerating or going to a lot of trouble. Do your homework before proceeding. I didn't and paid for it.

BTW, I also bought a bunch of bullfrog tadpoles and found that I also didn't know what I need to about those guys.

Thanks guys. I was thinking of trying to catch some locally. I figured they would do the best anyway.

Are you guys kidding? Grocery store to stock your pond??????????? Try a fish hatchery they usually have them and frogs and tadpoles and they are a lot cheaper. Plus they are a wealth of info just ask them.

I've never found a hatchery or fish seller around here that had crawdads or anything but fish. They might occasionally have them in their ponds but it is unusual. However, I only have experience locally.

Hi Dave:

I realize this is an old post, but I spend hours reading through the old ones and I was wondering if you found a source for crawfish. It sounds like you were trying to get the same kind I want red swamp crawfish, or Lousiana reds.

I wouldn't want to introduce a new species, but growing up as a kid and crawfishing in small ponds, creeks, and ditches, in north west East Texas (takes a big state to have to have a definition like that :/) I caught them all the time with the typical bacon tied on a string.

Now is a bad time to purchase them and it is their breeding season in the Lousiana rice fields. I was told by a farmer that he could sell me some in November or December. It will be warmer where they come from so I don't know if that would be a good time or not. Also the more into spring the cheaper they will be.

I have a pond, kind of, other than the one acre one, it is really a basin that was dug to get clay to build up a drive way into my place. In most years it never totally dries up or at least it has a muddy bottom. It is only about 400 or 500 square feet. Last year it went bone dry during the severe drough for a several months. But it is small enough I could afford to drool some hose water in it during bad years to at least keep it moist and muddy. When it overflows the water spreads out and goes through thick over grown bottom type thickets and ends up in my main pond. In normal years the inbetween area stays moist at least a few inches below ground.

I was thinking about throwing a few pounds of red swamp crawfish in there and feeding them. From what I read I would get at least a couple of good meals out of them a season plus some would wash through into the main pond. In fact I was thinking about throwing some into it anyway, but the survival rate in it would be a lot less, and they would be harder for me to trap. But the cc and the lmb would find them tastey.

So I was wondering if you found a source for them, and what your experience has been if you did find a source.

I have read a lot about crawfish and pet ones are shipped all the time alive and stay alive when they arrive at their new homes and the farmer seems like I wouldn't have much trouble getting them alive ready to turn loose.

As I said I was wondering if you got any and what your experience has been. Plus any input you might have in introducing them in to a sports fising pond. I have some smaller kinds until last year and the water in the big pond went down so low I don't think they could move their burrows fast enough to keep from getting eaten by fish or whatever. I just know before last year I could go around the edge of my pond and there would be crawfish burrows, this year none.

My pond is pretty steep sided in most places and goes down to 18 to 20 feet at its deepest. I have heard that crawfish will muddy the water, if the water is steep and deep do you think I will have that trouble? I didn't with the smaller ones. I also have read that they will help keep decay leaf and other dead vegatation cleaned up and convert it to a good forage.

I though I'd ask for you ideas on this before I go and do something that would be hard to unchange.

Thanks,

Bill

Bill, I didn't purchase any but went to a creek that I was told about in North Texas and caught about 100. I put them in a one acre pond and never saw them again. I expect they were a quick snack for the bass and catfish.

My previous stocking attempt was in a real small pond. I questioned the water quality there so didn't try that spot again. Even though small bluegill and frogs make it there, my talks with the crawdad farmers made me figure that they aren't as bullet proof as I had figured. When, or if, I try it again, I will stock them in a running creek on my property.

Hi Dave:

I had some in my pond before the water level fell 8 or 9'. I think it was one of your posts that mentioned how a ponds area can shrink. You are sure right! It went down so much I guess their holes couldn't be dug out fast enough to keep up with the drop. I lost all of my mussels too, to racoons. When the pond was built I went to a bait store and bought about 5 dozen and threw in and by the next year there were holes around the steep banks every where, especially around this little island I have. But they werent the red swamp kind.

I talked to crawfish farmer in La that farms them in rice fields. He can get them to me overnight in late winter or early spring. The shipping will probably cost as much as the crawfish. I'm only going to buy about 5 dozen. I'll put a couple of dozen (got that number how many to stock per acre reduced to the 500 sq ft of the "kind of a pond") and throw the rest into my 1 acre ponds slew. The slew where it joins the the main part of the 1 acre pond (description of pond under "Family Talk" - Pictures -Pond in a Bog") has steep sides and the island across the channel has steep sides which is where they seem to like to dig burrows. Then they are own their on to produce, be eaten, spread or disappear. The kind of pond during most years has a foot or two of water and either by rain or hose I will keep some water in there and feed them. Hopefully after a year get one or two meals for three or four people and when there is a hard rain and the little pond overflows at least a few will wash into the main pond. I don't know how well it will work but at least its a plan and it is for the fun of having a few and seeing what will happen, not to break a profit.

The way this farmer talked they are pretty bullet proof. If the water goes down they burrow, which they will anyway when they want to lay eggs and as long as they can stay moist they can get oxygen out of the air. Actually from of research reading different bulliens put out by state/federal agencies said the red swamp crawfish is one of the most tolerant species as far as adverse water conditions and quality go.

Are there none in the real small pond of yours at all? Maybe something ate them (blue gill come to mind if there were no cover they might not get the big ones but they sure could get the babies and the big ones life span isnt too long)? When I was a kid I went crawfishing in a mudhole pond around McKinney in the black gumbo and caught red swamp crawfish (lots of them)frogs lived there but I don't think a BG could survive in the water even if it didnt go dry every year which it did. We caught them the creeks and bar ditches around there too. My kind of a pond has stained but pretty clear water, not muddy and before it went dry during the drought it had FH's in it. I didn't put them there, somehow they just got into it. One year it did go where there was no water but lots of mud and then filled back up and the FH's were still there. But bone dry for months on end cleared it out.

Oh well, I'm going to try it, if it works it works, and if it doesn't I won't have lost much money, and will have had another excuse to play in the mud and have some fun.

When I get started I'll post it keep updates, even if I flop. Who knows in a couple of years I might send you a small box of them for being nice enough to answer my posts.

Bill, the $100 worth I put in the small pond all died or committed suicide. No survivors. The ones I caught and transferred to the bigger pond must have gotten eaten.

Give it a try and let us know how it works out.

Idea, why not do what the LA crawfisherman do but on a smaller scale to supply all the crawfish that you need to feed your fish and family? Very basically this is what you will need. About .5 acres or more (field not pond)that can be flooded and drained. You will need levees around it. Those of you that have water wells ask your farming buddies to help with the levees. About March or April when the crawfish season is winding down suck it up and drive to south louisiana and pick up about 6 sacks (40LB each) per acre (about 50cents per LB) of small stocker crawfish and put them into your flooded area. Broadcast seed rice ,which you bought also on your trip to LA, in the flooded fields and drain it 24-48 hours later. The stocker crawfish will burrow and emerge as mature breeding machines when you flood the now mature rice crop about early october. By late November until April or later you should have all the crawfish that you need for years to come. Then again in April plant rice and drain and the process repeats. The crawfish will feed on the bacteria and other things on the residual rice crop. This is not the whole story so get the pamphlet from LSU Ag center. My 20 lake by the way is surrounded by crawfish fields. Hey It could work.
I should be at the next PB conference.....AGAIN. Dr. Bob Guillory

Dr. Bob's suggestion sounds like a lot of work, but really isn't that bad. Crawfish are very much under rated as forage(for fish and for people). Last spring when my pond was brand new, I took dip net surveys around the shore line checking for forage. Every dip had at least 1-2 tiny crawfish, and sometimes I caught a half dozen. I think they serve as a great early forage and feeding supplement.

Here is an excellent thread on Craws as forage including lots of info and thoughts. Bob they are not under rated either as forage or food by me.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=25597&fpart=1

The reason I dont do it is because of cost and effort. I have a place I could dig another small pond. But if I were going to do it I wouldn't drain it I would build it in an area where it would hit ground water and have four or five feet of water in it all the time and build it with dikes around it where it wouldn't get run off. Then just seine or trap.

But that is way out there in the end of all those ten million ideas that would be fun but never get done.

A half acre of a set up like you describe would produce in one year what my family would eat in ten. And I don't want to go into business. Just have a bit of cheap fun with what I already have and have my own source of bait, which wouldn't need to be much. As far a under rating them as forage. I dont think a bass or catfish would rather have anything more than a crawfish!