# Crayfish/Crawfish/Crawdad/Mudbug...



## JAT83

Whatever you prefer to call them, I am looking to go catch a bunch of these. I know they are in Strawberry, East canyon, Scofield, and quite a few other places. I have heard they are really good eatin' but that you have to catch a bunch to make a decent meal. What have y'all found to be the best bait to lure these fellers in? I have a trap and stuff, I am just wondering what baits are the best. I tried googling it, and I would think that Fresh fish like carp would work, I have also heard of people using chicken or bacon as well. What do y'all use for bait?

Thanks,

Jeremy


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## Nibble Nuts

My understanding is that chicken works great.


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## Grandpa D

I don't know if it's legal, but I have heard of people punching holes in a can of tuna or fish flavor cat food and putting the can in a trap.
I have used chicken leg bones or hotdogs with great success at Starvation Reservoir before.


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## jahan

I use traps, chicken, chicken liver, ect. Almost anything works. It does take many to make a meal, but the hard part is you can't transport them while alive, but you are not suppose to cook and eat them after they are dead. One thing you can do is cook them where you are at or rip off the tail and pincher's there.


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## jeorv

Put a bag of ice in a cooler and cover it with newspaper, take off the tail and de-vein them at the lake as you pull them out of the trap, then put the tails on the paper so it will be cold but dry, someone at the crawdad fest at Strawberry told me this, seems to keep them til you cook them.


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## threshershark

I've used all kinds of meats. If you've never done it before, one of the best things you can do is lay out a large number of baits. Traps are nice to leave in one place for a while (hopefully it's a productive place), but I have done much better by dropping about 10 baits per person and then rotating down the bait line checking each after a few minutes.

Using a bait without a trap is pretty easy. You'll need a small net with somewhat fine mesh, some string, and some type of fairly firm meat that doesn't tear off very easy. Tie a chicken wing, drumstick, or some kind of meat to a string about 10 feet long. Toss the baits out in a line so you can cover some ground and find which spots produce best. Wait a few minutes, then slowly raise the first bait. The 'Dads will cling to bait if they are there, right up until you lift them out of the water. This is where your net comes in: Dip the net under the bait as you lift it, and once the meat breaks the surface the crayfish will just drop right into the net. Repeat this over and over as you cycle through the baits.

I've used freezer-burned venison, chicken, turkey, etc. To clean them (remember you can't legally transport live ones) just twist the tail at the base. It will pop off clean. Then grasp the middle tailfin and twist it 90 degrees, and pull it. The vein will come right out. The tail is now ready to be iced and cooked.


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## fishmanjustfish

I've been catching and eating the little lobsters for the past 30 years or so. Around here I have one of the best baits is an old can of salmon. I occasionally find canned salmon at dollar stores. Anyway, I'll put a can or two in zip lock baggie, juice and all, then take a knife and stabb 10 or so holes in it. Toss it in the trap and they can't resist. 

Here's is one of my favorite things to do with:

1) Boil up 100 to 150 in some Zats crab boil, be patient and peel all of them, leaving a small mound of meat.
2) Brush the bottom of pan with some oil and soften up some corn tortillas.
3) Once done with the tortillas, put a table spoon of oil in pan, teaspoon or so of fresh garlic in pan and tossed the crawfish meat around for a minute to warm and absorb oil and garlic, remove from heat.
4) Divide meat mixture into how ever many enchiliadas you want, a dozen or so is about right.
5) Roll meat and a bit of your favorite cheese into tortillas.
6) Align in pan as if they were enchiliadas.
7) Cover them with just a little bit of cheese and bake cover at 350 for 30 minutes.

Serve with a squirt of this sauce:
In a blender, puree the following 1 cup of mayo, 1 jalopeno (seeds removed), teaspoon of garlic, 1/3 bunch cilantro, few drops of cider vinegar. 

Dribble the sauce over the enchiliadas and serve. excuse any typos.


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## LOAH

Excuse any drool that may be forming at the corner of my mouth.  

That sounds pretty good. I've never even tried them, but I think I may have to now. I think I'll start small though in case I can't bring myself to eat them...Less waste. :lol:


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## JAT83

Wow, that recipe sounds good! The drool is forming in my mouth too! I hope I can get a bunch this weekend!!!


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## Fishrmn

threshershark said:


> Traps are nice to leave in one place for a while (hopefully it's a productive place), but I have done much better by dropping about 10 baits per person and then rotating down the bait line checking each after a few minutes.


You might want to limit that number to 5 baits per person in the future. Unless they are close enough to grab without having a line attached.

Taking crayfish
Utah Admin. Code R657-13-15
Fishing for crayfish (also called "crawdads") is a fun activity for the whole family.
If you're under the age of 14, you do not need a license to fish for crayfish. If you're 14 years of age or older, you must have a valid Utah fishing or combination license to fish for crayfish. You may take crayfish for personal, noncommercial purposes at any body of water where there's an open fishing season. You may not take crayfish if the fishing season at that water is closed, however.
You may take crayfish by hand or with a trap, dipnet, liftnet, handline, pole or seine. You must also obey the following rules:
you may not use game fish or their parts for bait, or use any substance • that is illegal for fishing;
seines (nets) may not exceed 10 feet in length or width;•
*you may not use more than five lines*, and not more than one of those • lines can have hooks attached to it (on the lines without hooks, simply tie your bait to the line so the crayfish can grasp the bait with its claw); and
you may not transport live crayfish away from the body of water where • you captured them.

Fishrmn


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## fishmanjustfish

Here's the second favorite for the versatile little creatures:

Boil up a bunch of peeled potato's, don't boil them to mash potato soft, just soften them up. Bring'em out of the water and place in COLD water, and then chop to bite size. Set aside.

Soften up oh say 2 cups of chopped celery, one full bunch of green onions greens and all, 2 cups or maybe less of shredded carrots, soften them up in a stick of butter. Probably 10 to 15 minutes.

Pour in a quart to half gallon of milk right into your vegies, add one good sized cup of cooking white wine, and now add the potato's. Add a shake or two or three of Cholula hot sauce, add maybe two tablespoons of pepper, and salt to taste. Bring to a SLOW SLOW boil, be careful or the milk will burn for a few minutes then turn down to simmer.

Sorry, prior to all the above, boil up 100 or so dads in Zats, clean, and get your mound of meat. It's really hard to stay out of them. Again, warm the meat in a little bit of oil and and fresh garlic. 

Add the dads to each bowl of chowder, NOT TO THE POT, if you put them in too far before serving, they can rubber up on ya. Just prior to serving. 

You can thicken the chowder by adding a bit of Wondra Flour toward the end of the boil. 

I know this sounds simplistic, but people rave over the stuff. Serve with some oyster crackers. Basically, it's clam chowder but made with dads. I've yet to have one person turn their nose up at the stuff, in fact, I bet you can't make enough of it. 

If you really want to fancy it up, put the chowder in an oven safe bowl, set your dads right on top but do not stir in, then cover with a white cheese, broil the beegbies out of it, then serve. 

The white wine is the key. Make it a few times and adjust to your liking.


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## JAT83

Sounds like I am going to have to try out a lot of these recipes!!!


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## JAT83

Actually, now that I think of it, I have another question...

What times of the year are best for Crayfishing? Can they be taken through the ice?
I read somewhere that they prefer temperatures above 40 degrees, but wasn't sure how active they were at icy temps?


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## fishmanjustfish

Oh I'd say August and September are best harvest times around here in Utah. At least that has been my experience. Maybe a month earlier down south. You got my mouth watering when I first read your post so I went out last night and put some traps out. I've got a bad feeling about catching anything though. The water was so low that it looked like much up their habitat has shrunk. I bought a pork butt for $6.00 at Albertson had them slice it up. So, between pork butt, an old cooked chicken, old chunks of smoke ham, and a can of salmon, and other meat scraps we shall see. I just didn't get that c-dad sensation. It chaps my wife's butt but a small corner of chest freezer looks like a frozen compost pile. I don't throw any meat scraps away throughout the year. I think Strawberry and the Gorge provide the best harvest. 

Try making the chowder at home sometime, even minus the crawfish. The white wine and milk sounds crazy but it works.


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## fishmanjustfish

No luck, six traps, two c-dads, but had fun fishing. Way to cold for them. :mrgreen:


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## JAT83

Where did you end up going?


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## fishmanjustfish

East Canyon


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## JAT83

At what point does it become too cold for them? Do they just go down deep and hibernate when it gets cold like this?


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## fishmanjustfish

I don't know and the internet wasn't much help. Seems like August is the best month, maybe it is the heat. I have shipped in 100 lbs from down south a few years ago. About 1/4 were dead though.


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## spiraleyes

Bumping this thread


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## Jeremy28

I know Im probably going to catch some flack for this but sometimes common sense is foregoes the law. I mean, how silly is that that you can't take "live" crawdads from a lake. The only reason I can think of for this is because of potential spread of foreign crawdads into other lakes. Obviously, your not going to do that so I would take them alive anyways if I thought I could get away with it. Maybe there is other reasons but probably still just as silly.


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## Huge29

Not silly at all, and you are smarter than you give yourself credit you are going to catch some flack for that post, starting right now, planting in other waters is the exact reason for the LAW. Really not that big of a deal to cook them right there...not usually a good idea to say/insinuate/imply that you are going to break the law on this forum :wink: . Ask folks how they like having lakes poisoned because of someone planting an unwanted fish in that lake and it taking over..., now that is silly.


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## live2flyfish

The best bait I have found is chicken. get the cheap chicken bits from walmart/ smiths and stick them in a trap. Throw it 10-15' from shore and give it a couple of hours. 

One place you might want to try for some crawfish is Vernon Reservoir. There are a TON there and they arent too bad on the size meter. We went out in August last year and while I fished from a tube, my kids played with the crawfish. They caught well over 100 in about 20 minutes by pulling the clumps of moss and weeds up on the shore and then picking through the weeds to find them.


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## Jeremy28

like I said, if your going to take them home and eat them and they will go bad if you don't take them alive then I would take them alive if I thought I could get away with it and I would bet that 9/10 people would do the same. (9/10 people probably don't even know that its against the law). Foreign crawdads are far more likely to infest a lake because of an inlet of some sort than from some moron taking the time to transport them from a different lake (even if they did (which would be like 1 time in a lake per 10 years), it wouldn't be very often that they would have some sort of disease or whatever). 

I would never hunt crawdads anyways so its not me but Im just giving an honest opinion about it and won't reply anymore to this post because its......well......a "non issue".

PS: I don't think "you are going to break the law" meaning "me" is appropriate because I never said that I would do that. It was hypothetical. Also, this "opinion" is concerning crawdads and not minnows/fish or any other transportable live species.


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## JAT83

Yeah, they do spoil quick, so it's a good idea to bring a LOT of ice in a cooler.


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## Poo Pie

Jeremy- I know you are not going to reply and don't even catch crawdads but this may be helpful to others... I had heard all of my life that you have to cook crawfish LIVE or else suffer the consequences I.E.- sour tummy. A buddy of mine and I were camping at a lake in southeastern Utah that is full of the little buggers. We would eat them every night and we wouldn't cook them live- we wouldn't even cook the whole thing. We would pull the tails off and cook only that and discard the head and legs. I brought a ton of them home with me- just the tails that is- in a gallon zip-loc on ice in a cooler. They were just as good when I got home and didn't get sick at all. This works great and you can fit a lot more in the boiling water. I would pull the tails off while they are still alive :wink: 
P.S. they go great with blue gill and LMB!


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## JAT83

Poo Pie said:


> Jeremy- I know you are not going to reply and don't even catch crawdads but this may be helpful to others... I had heard all of my life that you have to cook crawfish LIVE or else suffer the consequences I.E.- sour tummy. A buddy of mine and I were camping at a lake in southeastern Utah that is full of the little buggers. We would eat them every night and we wouldn't cook them live- we wouldn't even cook the whole thing. We would pull the tails off and cook only that and discard the head and legs. I brought a ton of them home with me- just the tails that is- in a gallon zip-loc on ice in a cooler. They were just as good when I got home and didn't get sick at all. This works great and you can fit a lot more in the boiling water. I would pull the tails off while they are still alive :wink:
> P.S. they go great with blue gill and LMB!


My name is Jeremy too! Anyhow, that is a good idea and a good use of space to rip off the tails! Next I'll have to catch a mess of 'em and find some good recipes!


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## STEVO

I prefer the crawdads to fish any day. We usually catch a bunch & boil them in Beer, add some garlic salt & some pepper. YOU CANT BEAT THE TASTE. They taste just like lobster in the sauce you get shrimp scampi in.

We usually just stick some lunch meat in the trap & leave it for a few hours. Get a couple traps & you can have quite a few in a short period.


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## Nibble Nuts

I'm going to break the law.


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## Huge29

Nibble Nuts said:


> I'm going to break the law.


What now??!! Are you going to replace your avitar with a personal photo of the same pose? :lol: I did not mean my last post to come off harsh, if I did I apologize, I could care less if you take them to your camp and eat them or home, I just hate to sound like we condone breaking any laws on here...I think you know what I mean... I am going to have to try that chowder recipe that does sound good, we have had the problem of catching enough sizeable ones at Strawberry, but when using them in chowder the size may not be a big deal.


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## Poo Pie

STEVO said:


> I prefer the crawdads to fish any day. We usually catch a bunch & boil them in *Beer*, add some garlic salt & some pepper. YOU CANT BEAT THE TASTE. They taste just like lobster in the sauce you get shrimp scampi in.
> 
> We usually just stick some lunch meat in the trap & leave it for a few hours. Get a couple traps & you can have quite a few in a short period.


Now why didn't I ever think of that? Oh ya, it's because I drink it all! Stevo that sounds like an awesome idea, I'll just have to bring some extra, maybe a cube of 30 stones(Whiskey, Tango)  but if we are just using them to boil in some "extra love" then OK! I'll stick to my premium Pabst Blue Ribbon for drinking :wink:


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## LOAH

Hey now, PBR is the ULTIMATE (whiskey, tango) beer! Still decent, but it's on the list right next to Olympia, Keystone, and Natty Light. :lol: 

I'd say PBR is the best out of those "only when I'm camping" beers. :lol:


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## Poo Pie

LOAH said:


> Hey now, PBR is the ULTIMATE (whiskey, tango) beer! Still decent, but it's on the list right next to Olympia, Keystone, and Natty Light. :lol:
> 
> I'd say PBR is the best out of those "only when I'm camping" beers. :lol:


Wish I had a sarcasm key on my McPuter. :wink: But seriously if you look in my fridge next to the amstel and corona you will indeed find PBR. You should come over sometime, it's what I drink when I have company!


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## chet

crawdads at chets house friday night, who's bringin the PBR?


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## Narient

Wow! I totally missed this whole thread. Thanks for bringing it back to the top, chet. I learned some good things today.


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## DallanC

Oddly enough, just last night I reposted instructions for my home-built crawfish traps. They are really easy to make, cheap and work great. Wire a chicken leg to the center and it will be filled with them in no-time. I've had over 30 in a single trap after an hour soak at strawberry.

These make for a GREAT scout project btw.

http://www.utahsportsmen.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=31

-DallanC


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