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.



I wish I had the tenacity of GSF!