trapping crayfish

[dean nelson]

Anyone on here have much real world experience and ideas on doing it right? Like most I've cought tons well younger by flipping rocks but am now just using traps. Started off in apple with a couple herring out of one of the more expensive packs you can pick up at Scheels that I had planned on using for fishing either trout and salmon later in the year or in the spring pike. Got blanked in two good looking spots....... Either they were not therr or that bait didnt float there boat. Moved to a tiny creek and caught a fresh carp and chopped him up and got four the first day and ten today.

So it seems like I'm heading the right way just looking for any pointers on things that may help tip the odds a little more in my favor.

Will say it was funny once people found out I was starting the get a few of them they came out of the wood work. Some want them for bait same as me and yet some want to boil them bad! Lol

 

[Kurtr]

i have wanted to try this just cant find time. boiling and eating would be at the top of my list.

 

[NPO_Aaron]

Believe it or not, I've had good success with bacon as bait.

 

[Lycanthrope]

chicken livers seem to work well as bait or fresh fish heads, which can be had for free at a lot of cleaning stations, especially in the spring. Not many good places to catch crayfish around bismarck, Id try the rock wall over on harmon lake, where the dam is. I know you can catch a few off the face of the dam at Sak, in the rocks there. Youll get more if you put your traps out overnight as they are somewhat nocturnal. ND doesnt have big crawdads like some of the deep mountain lakes in Idaho, etc. Ive read they have a species over there that can get up to 8 inches long or something like that, basically mini lobsters, and the water is deep and clear and cold, im sure they are delish!

 

[Lou63]

Lake Darling has a lot of crawfish as well, on the jetty at Green crossing used to see hundreds of them sitting on the rocks

 

[PrairieGhost]

I freeze and save turkey wings. I don't remember the site, but a few years ago I bought two traps off the internet. In the past I would do better than a five gallon bucket full in a day. Leave them in cold water for 24 hours then boil 5 minutes and yuuum. Last year in the same lakes I could not catch a single crayfish. I notice fewer crayfish in every lake I have trapped before. Chemical runoff maybe.

 

[KDM]

The best luck I've had trapping crayfish to eat was to find small creeks that had a depth between 6 inches and a foot with rocky/gravel bottoms. The shallowness kept the larger smallmouth and other crayfish predators down to a minimum and that equated to larger crayfish. Used a standard minnow trap I modified so the crayfish could crawl in under water. Fresh fish heads wired to the bottom of the trap seemed to work the best for bait. You have to watch out for racoons though. Those masked raiders LOVE to flip the traps over to get the bait. Good Luck, those little critters are sure tastey. Post of pic of your catch Please. I'd like to see a basket full of them.

 

[dean nelson]

Thanks for the tip. Ironically 100% of my luck has come from just such a creek but I've been fishing the "deeper" pool near the road. No bass to speak of in this creek but extremely large numbers of pike in the three to ten pound range. I was flyfishing the creek below the pool the other day and did in fact see several dead ones on the rocks so may have to give it a try down there.

That said anyone have any idea why creek chubs would not look at my fly? The only things I could come up with was that either I had them a bit spooked or they were in fact not chubs....posable baby carp or more posable suckers.

 

[KDM]

I would avoid the areas where you find dead crayfish. Dead crayfish means there is, or was, a lethal water condition there for some reason. It could be water temp, chemical contamination, disease, or some other factor. A guy just doesn't know. I WOULD NOT eat crayfish from that part of the creek. Look upstream from there to see if there are large live crayfish. I also tried to avoid areas around road crossings. To many folks look at a creek as a dumping place for all kinds of crap.......Human PIGS!!

 

[dean nelson]

Well I'm mainly going for bait contamination isnt of great concern. The dead ones were few a far between....looked more like just a natural death. It just told me there were some in that stretch. Would you go ubber shallow or in the deeper corners that are a foot or two?

 

[KDM]

I'd go deep just due to the hot weather and sunshine. Keeping crayfish in the warm shallow water in direct sun may not be too conducive to keeping them alive.

 

[Enslow]

I like to shoot guns

 

[thriller1]

I really don't know much about this but is seems to me I eat an article in outdoor life A LONG time ago about using canned cat food. Take a screw driver and poke a bunch of holes in it then put it in the trap. I fish ashtabula every weekend and if we need fish I don't hesitate keeping white bass. The ones I cleaned this weekend we're loaded with craw dad's so there in there somewhere

 

[muskelllunge13]

No idea around Bis but I have a cabin on Leech Lake in Mn. Some jerk let loose Rusty crawfish 20 yrs ago. Bad for Muskie cabbage weeds, but easy to trap and bigger than native red tailed crawfish. Easy to catch I also use a walleye head and fillet less body for bait. In June they molt and hard to catch but by the 4 th of July can usually catch 20+ per night per trap. Some guy 10 years ago commercially trapped them in portage bay sold supposedly 20K lbs a year to New Orleans. Nothing like a good craw dad boil, u need about at least a dozen per person, a lb of raw shrimp, new potatoes, small onions, fresh corn, can throw some walleye fillets cut in thirds at the end. Take your turkey fryer 1 1/2 gallon of water, add the Cajun crawfish boil spice package, fresh small red potatoes and onions, boil for 5 min., add sweet corn boil another 5 min., add shrimp or crab 2 min later the live Craws... Done in another 3-5 min. Pull the strainer out dump on picnic table on newspaper. Enjoy with ice cold beer while making and eating!

 

[dean nelson]

Unfortunately in ND the bait can't be made from any game fish so I'm forced to use carp at this point since they are free.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Unfortunately in ND the bait can't be made from any game fish so I'm forced to use carp at this point since they are free.

I didnt realize this... seems like a dumb rule

 

[muskelllunge13]

Sorry I ment to say I use Redhorse sucker as bait not walleye.....

 

[dean nelson]

Yeah it sucks my folks live on a privet lake I could get bluegill by the ton on! That rule pluse the one trap rule and the no opening bigger then 1 1/4 inch on traps are all stupid!

 

[Captain Ahab]

I bet the G&F do heavy recon on those wily wildcat crawdad trappers.

 

[Sum1]

The cray dads in ND are hardly worth eating. We caught about fifteen bigguns last year and boiled them up. The tiny bit of meat you got off them was nothing like the craw dads you get in a resturant. Just too small.