Trapping Crawfish

[Neil McCauley]

Anyone have experience with this?

Bought a couple crawfish traps for the heck of it recently but I have never had luck catching craws. Any good bait suggestions, or locations (for a lake) to set them?

Might use a few as bait, but would be nice to get enough for a small boil.

[kcdinkerz]

I tried once and got my pots jacked haven't done it again, same with my catfish yoyos.....

[Bluebasser86]

Use an old milk jug. Cut a little off the top and bury it in the mud or sand even or close to even with the top of the jug and put some cut fish, chicken liver, or hotdogs in the bottom. They climb in to get the bait but can't climb back up the smooth sides. 

[MDBowHunter]

If your lucky enough to catch some try steaming them as we in MD would do with crabs, and make sure you use old bay on them. If you do this you'll probably never boil a crawfish again, I promise...

[Catt]

http://www.trapperarne.com/whatbait.htm

[je1946]

Use fresh fish.  Some people think that the best bait is foul smelling old fish or chicken.   WRONG  Only use fresh smelling bait, crawfish do not like foul smelling bait.  FRESH ONLY

 

[MassBass]

Dead cut fish, like native sunfish will work. Not sure about the legalities of it though. Be careful because you might attract a hawg snapper turtle. 

[Jar11591]

I've heard meat scraps work well, but no personal experience for me. I've also wanted to trap some for a meal. I dont use live bait much anymore. 

[ww2farmer]

When I toss the trap out in the creek behind my house I use hot dogs. Heck..........sometimes they go in it with out any bait at all, I think they are kind of curious little things. When ever I take the kids down there, they want to start flipping rocks over looking for them...........I always tell them to wait a couple minutes for the silt we stirred up walking in to wash away/settle out, and then just look close with out touching anything...........the little monsters come out of the wood work to see WTH is going on. They are quite bold, they often walk right up to our feet if we stand still and give us the once over before backing away.

[Maxximus Redneckus]

Becareful trapping and catching them you can deplete a stream area in a few weeeks if you aint careful..when. i would catch them id let half go then cull the rest same goes for minnows ,hellgies in streams.i dont think it has a big effect in a big swamp or marsh but .small streams have a delicate ecosystem.one or 2 female crawdads could impact the stream a few hundred yards.

[Neil McCauley]

Not a huge risk of depleting them I think. It's a 29k acre lake. Just wondering what kinds of areas to set traps....depth, bottom type, structure, etc. I am thinking rocky bottoms 10-12 fow near shore.