How to find and catch crayfish (Crawdads)

[@hawkmoon1704]

been a thing of mine to go get some of these guys. thanks for the NBN thing Ive found where to go ... awesome

[@SelfSufficientHub]

hawkmoon1704 very welcome- glad you found it useful!

[@paulbazeley6259]

Looks good, tastes good, and best of all.....its free!!! Great video mate 👍👍

[@SelfSufficientHub]

Paul Bazeley agree 100% with that mate! Thanks!

[@Thelastminuteangler_johnhewitt]

so i can (without licence) catch red signals in a net, take them home to eat?

[@Leeandemma88]

No, you need a licence.

[@TheFunkyKettle]

Perfect video, thank you

[@Mark-nw7xx]

Leftover bacon. Never heard of that before haha.. Great video. Does cold weather change anything? Hopefully going to put some traps out over the weekend

[@MichaelFerry]

Did you try this? I was curious about whether you can catch them in winter, too.

[@Mark-nw7xx]

@@MichaelFerry nothing. From x2 traps. Tried x2 days in different locations. Guess just way now till next April 🤷

[@jayinwood647]

@@MichaelFerryI’ve got a trap and I’ve never caught them in winter

[@thingsandstuff50]

Difficult to catch when the water temp drops below 8 degrees c as they don't feed so probably won't enter the traps

[@lhill4083]

you didnt show where you put your bait (cat food) or how much you used to coax each craw out of its hole. Also it would be interesting to see how you shell/eat them. Is there a specific way to remove the shell to extract the maximum amount of meat? Great video though, thanks for sharing all that info :)

[@SelfSufficientHub]

L Hill thanks for the feedback. For the bait - I just throw a couple of the chunks into the water somewhere near the holes - within a foot or two. It’s the smell in the water that matters. So long as you don’t place it where they can reach it without coming out then that’s good enough- they will smell and subsequently travel a fair distance to get to it. I break the tail off by bending it upwards while holding the head and thorax until it snaps off, then pull apart the legs by placing my thumbs in the centre of the body between where the legs meet and peel them away- this frees the tail meat, I then remove the guts which is a thin line that runs down the body (easy to spot). I break the claws with a nutcracker to get to the claw meat. The rest just needs sucking out from the other legs etc, but to be honest I usually don’t worry too much beyond tails and claws. Hope this helps.

[@mrbeaverstate]

Do you kill the Lobster before putting it in the pot?

[@rogerrabbit6522]

Good information and it's definitely the right thing to do to know what you are catching but I don't agree with the principle of licenses. It's also worth pointing out that legal and Lawful are separate jurisdictions with legal being primarily for commerce but we all have a duty of care within Law.

[@SelfSufficientHub]

I am not a legal scholar so don’t really have much input on legal vs lawful but I did try and explain the legislation as it stands and hopefully it is useful. Thanks 😊👍

[@alkodjdjd]

where exactly was that river so I can just go there? :)

[@Emmalt1]

Well that's an excursion planned with the kids in the summer. Thanks

[@SelfSufficientHub]

You are welcome!

[@ianmaddams9577]

Did you have any success?

[@MrEsChannelYT]

The application says: "Application to trap and/or *remove* crayfish in England" "Please select your proposed trapping method and indicate the number of instruments you intend to use below. -Crayfish trap -Hand net -Drop net -Artificial refuge trap -Other (provide details e.g. by hand or hand line)" So I am still not sure if you are allowed to catch them by hand or not without a licence, since it says application to remove them and also has hand net/hand trapping specified as one of the methods. It is annoying how little information there is about this.

[@SelfSufficientHub]

My understanding after speaking to the environment agency is that you only REQUIRE a license to leave traps. There may be an element of collecting data on the forms but you can catch without traps without a license. I agree that the lack of clarity is very frustrating Good luck 👍😊

[@MrEsChannelYT]

@@SelfSufficientHub That sounds about right. Thank you.

[@korzer]

You're actually not helping the situation. The main predators for crayfish when they're young are the adults.. Removing the large male crayfish leads to an explosion of smaller juvenile crayfish, then an increase in biomass prompts them to spread out further in the search for new territory. Also most people using traps to catch crayfish are unknowingly transporting pathogens from stream to stream, river to lake, etc by not carrying out proper disinfecting on their equipment, boots, clothes..

[@amazingaquaticsandexotics3030]

i dont see why only the big males would get caught, when i netted a few crays from a lake i got more fems than males and although they didnt survive transport and when dissected all the fems were full of hundreds undeveloped eggs

[@seanwozencroft524]

Removing live crayfish from the water and transporting them alive to your home is illegal and has been for 3 years now.

[@zachjarman9162]

And eat them there preferably