Determining the Color of Local Crawfish

[BrackishBassin]

So, I have a local pond I fish quite a bit. It’s where I caught my PB. I was fishing it earlier this week to try out some cold water techniques (tried a jerk bait and worm slowly drug on the bottom), but got skunked. Then I realized that up and down the bank, as far as I could see, were crawfish chimneys. In spite of all the grass, I’ve decided to try fishing a jig and craw combo to see if I can’t get some fish this winter. The only problem is, I’ve never actually seen a crawfish there. Never seen a dead one, or found one in a bass’ mouth. 

 

Does anyone happen to know if digging up/around the chimneys would work if I wanted to get my hands on one to try and match the coloring with a jig? I’d like to avoid buying 10 different colors and just trying them until one works. Would rather start off matching the hatch. Any other suggestions for ways for me to figure out what color they are would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Another thing I should probably ask is anyone aware of any other aquatic species that build chimneys like that along the bank? Don’t want to waste time imitating crawfish if there aren’t any in the area. 

 

Thanks!

[Scott F]

IMHO, If a bass is in the mood to eat, and sees a crayfish, he will not pass it up because it is not the right color. Even if the bass has never seen a crayfish before, if he thinks it's edible, he'll eat it. One of the most popular bass baits of all time is a worm. How often have you ever seen worms swimming in your local waters?

[WRB]

Go to the pond at night with a flash light and look for crawdads. Buy or build a crawdad trap they cost sbout $5 or less to make. A 36"x24" mesh wire hardware cloth makes a good trap. Roll the wire into a tube 36" long and fold the wire ends to hold the seam together. Fold one end to form a funnel about 4" -3" dia opening. Flatten the opposite end and fold. Attach a cord and you have a crawdad trap. Fish heads make good bait or a couple strips of bacon rolled up with a tooth to hold it together. Drop the bait into the trap funnel and put the trap in the water along the bank and tie the cord to a stack.

Leave over night and you should have several crawdads in the trap. Open the flat end and dump them out.

Crawdads change colors, they should be very dark if burrowing into the mud.

Tom

 

[Smokinal]

20 minutes ago, Scott F said:

How often have you ever seen worms swimming in your local waters?

Tequila Sunrise worms at that

[BrackishBassin]

25 minutes ago, Smokinal said:

Tequila Sunrise worms at that

True enough. 

[Bankbeater]

You might try checking with your conservation office. They can probably tell you the species that lives in your area. 

[Turkey sandwich]

The crayfish trap is the way to go if you're really driven to figure it out.  It's cheap and easy to make.  Digging out those tunes can be a nightmare - some crayfish will dig DEEP.  

 

Also, understand your results aren't going to be totally conclusive.  Most bodies of water have multiple species of crayfish, eating different things, and thus lots of different colors.  If you keep with the basic crayfish patterns, you'll likely be good.  

[riverbasser]

There's a reason black/brown/orange/red/green are so popular jig colors. Almost all crayfish are one or more of these colors. No matter where you are located

[Gundog]

51 minutes ago, WRB said:

 Drop the bait into the trap funnel and put the trap in the water along the bank and tie the cord to a stack.

Leave over night and you should have several crawdads in the trap. Open the flat end and dump them out.

Crawdads change colors, they should be very dark if burrowing into the mud.

Tom

 

Be careful. Some states have laws regarding the trapping of crawfish. I believe in PA your limit is 50 crawfish and if you keep them and not use them as bait in the water that they are taken from, you must remove the heads immediately. Some states may require that you put a tag with your name on it on the trap. Check your state laws. 

[BrackishBassin]

6 minutes ago, Gundog said:

Be careful. Some states have laws regarding the trapping of crawfish. I believe in PA your limit is 50 crawfish and if you keep them and not use them as bait in the water that they are taken from, you must remove the heads immediately. Some states may require that you put a tag with your name on it on the trap. Check your state laws. 

Thanks! It’s a privately owned pond, and I don’t plan on keeping any. I doubt that DNR would worry about it, but I’ll see what the law says. 

11 minutes ago, riverbasser said:

There's a reason black/brown/orange/red/green are so popular jig colors. Almost all crayfish are one or more of these colors. No matter where you are located

 

I have two jig colors currently - black/blue and a green pumpkin. The green pumpkin is heavier than I’d like (it’s no deeper than 10’), but I lost my 3/8 green pumpkin this summer to a log. 

[A-Jay]

@BrackishBassin

Having a basic understanding of a bass's prey is a solid plan.

There are 'several' different species of crayfish spread all over the place but there are some basic life cycle traits that most will inevitably follow.   

 Here's a couple of links with perhaps more (or less) information than you may have been looking for.

http://www.crayfishfacts.net/crayfish_life_cycle/crayfish_life_cycle.html

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/wkrec/CrawfishBiologyHistory.pdf

 

btw ~ It's probably time to pick up a few more jigs.

A-Jay

 

 

 

[WRB]

^^^this^^^

never buy 1 jig!

Tom

[BrackishBassin]

2 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

@BrackishBassin

Having a basic understanding of a bass's prey is a solid plan.

There are 'several' different species of crayfish spread all over the place but there are some basic life cycle traits that most will inevitably follow.   

 Here's a couple of links with perhaps more (or less) information than you may have been looking for.

http://www.crayfishfacts.net/crayfish_life_cycle/crayfish_life_cycle.html

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/wkrec/CrawfishBiologyHistory.pdf

 

btw ~ It's probably time to pick up a few more jigs.

A-Jay

 

 

 

Thanks! I’ll definitely be picking up more jigs, if I can catch a fish with one. Made a rule for myself - no new lures of a particular type until I catch a fish with one. Was able to knock out plastics, frogs, poppers, whopper plopper, and buzzbaits this year. But no luck with any of my jigs. Even tried throwing a bitsy bug in a pond with a trailer that had been catching fish all day thrown weightless, but there were zero takers. So, I hope that I can manage to catch one on either the black/blue or green pumpkin Booyah Boos that I have, or I’ll be stuck with them for another season without any to add to the collection. 

[Deleted account]

2 hours ago, BrackishBassin said:

So, I have a local pond I fish quite a bit. It’s where I caught my PB. I was fishing it earlier this week to try out some cold water techniques (tried a jerk bait and worm slowly drug on the bottom), but got skunked. Then I realized that up and down the bank, as far as I could see, were crawfish chimneys. In spite of all the grass, I’ve decided to try fishing a jig and craw combo to see if I can’t get some fish this winter. The only problem is, I’ve never actually seen a crawfish there. Never seen a dead one, or found one in a bass’ mouth. 

 

Does anyone happen to know if digging up/around the chimneys would work if I wanted to get my hands on one to try and match the coloring with a jig? I’d like to avoid buying 10 different colors and just trying them until one works. Would rather start off matching the hatch. Any other suggestions for ways for me to figure out what color they are would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Another thing I should probably ask is anyone aware of any other aquatic species that build chimneys like that along the bank? Don’t want to waste time imitating crawfish if there aren’t any in the area. 

 

Thanks!

I know this one. I don't have a bucket cloud picture storage thingy, but I have a pond with crystal clear water in PG County where matching the bugs works great (not this time of year), and I've caught several nice ones with bugs in their throats. Black/brown/orange with black/red flake works well. I went out for a couple of hours yesterday and today and caught some goods one.

[BrackishBassin]

1 minute ago, reason said:

I know this one. I don't have a bucket cloud picture storage thingy, but I have a pond with crystal clear water in PG County where matching the bugs works great (not this time of year), and I've caught several nice ones with bugs in their throats. Black/brown/orange with black/red flake works well. I went out for a couple of hours yesterday and today and caught some goods one.

So, jigs don’t work for you once it gets cold? Hope that’s not the case. It’s pretty much all I’ve got left in my cold water arsenal. Jerkbaits have been a complete bust as have soft plastics, both weighted and unweighted. 

[A-Jay]

11 minutes ago, BrackishBassin said:

Thanks! I’ll definitely be picking up more jigs, if I can catch a fish with one. Made a rule for myself - no new lures of a particular type until I catch a fish with one. Was able to knock out plastics, frogs, poppers, whopper plopper, and buzzbaits this year. But no luck with any of my jigs. Even tried throwing a bitsy bug in a pond with a trailer that had been catching fish all day thrown weightless, but there were zero takers. So, I hope that I can manage to catch one on either the black/blue or green pumpkin Booyah Boos that I have, or I’ll be stuck with them for another season without any to add to the collection. 

You're Welcome and Good Luck. 

While most of the baits you've listed are 'moving baits' - a jig for the most part, is not.

My advice for any new jig fisherman is to do less with it.

After the cast, and once it settles to the bottom, slowly ( and I mean slowly) work it back to you like you were trying to sneak it along WITHOUT being detected.  Really, just inch it along. No big hops, no big wiggles or jiggles - just a sneaky & sloooow track (with plenty of lengthy pauses) back to you.  

Don't worry about a bass 'knowing' it's there.  They know - it's their world.  

I bet you get bit.

Be careful though - you might get your arm broke. 

A-Jay

[Deleted account]

1 minute ago, BrackishBassin said:

So, jigs don’t work for you once it gets cold? Hope that’s not the case. It’s pretty much all I’ve got left in my cold water arsenal. Jerkbaits have been a complete bust as have soft plastics, both weighted and unweighted. 

No, they work. But I find that a finesse or hair jig is better in cold water. The water isn't that cold right now, and with the mild few days we've had they are neither here nor there. All my fish were shallow, but I needed a subtle something going by their face. We need to talk about that PB in SoMD though, March into April is always good for a 6-8 lb fish locally.

[WRB]

If you think crawdads are 1 color you are wrong. Crawdad shells are made up of a dot matrix of multiple colors like your TV screen. What may appear to the human eye that blends colors into 1 color, we don't know what the bass see. We do know that crawdads try to blend into the bottom background for camouflage to survive. Adding contrast colors helps the bass find the jig. Knowing what your local crawdads look like is good, adding contrasting color to the basic color will improve strike ratio. Every lake is different regarding regarding color preference.

Tom

 

[BrackishBassin]

50 minutes ago, reason said:

No, they work. But I find that a finesse or hair jig is better in cold water. The water isn't that cold right now, and with the mild few days we've had they are neither here nor there. All my fish were shallow, but I needed a subtle something going by their face. We need to talk about that PB in SoMD though, March into April is always good for a 6-8 lb fish locally.

Would love a few pointers for catching a big one locally. I’m a bank beater though, so anything deep is out of the question. My PB was caught in July last year. Bluegill were spawning and I tossed a pumpkin chartreuse lizard at the edge of a grass line near their beds. Barely had a chance to start to sink and it was gone. 

59 minutes ago, A-Jay said:

You're Welcome and Good Luck. 

While most of the baits you've listed are 'moving baits' - a jig for the most part, is not.

My advice for any new jig fisherman is to do less with it.

After the cast, and once it settles to the bottom, slowly ( and I mean slowly) work it back to you like you were trying to sneak it along WITHOUT being detected.  Really, just inch it along. No big hops, no big wiggles or jiggles - just a sneaky & sloooow track (with plenty of lengthy pauses) back to you.  

Don't worry about a bass 'knowing' it's there.  They know - it's their world.  

I bet you get bit.

Be careful though - you might get your arm broke. 

A-Jay

Thanks! That’s exactly the retrieve I was thinking of using since things are cooling down around here. 

[BASS302]

@BrackishBassin

http://dnr.maryland.gov/streams/Documents/KeytotheCrayfishesofMD_8_18_10.pdf

[BrackishBassin]

10 minutes ago, BASS302 said:

@BrackishBassin

http://dnr.maryland.gov/streams/Documents/KeytotheCrayfishesofMD_8_18_10.pdf

Awesome resource! Thanks!

 

Looks like the ones in my area would range from light tan to brown with blue and orange mixed in. 

[Chris_97TJ]

If you really want to just catch one, tie a piece of raw bacon on a string and lower it down into a chimney. You’ll feel it when they start to grab it, then just slowly....(practice your jig fishing here, move it super slow) pull it out and I bet there’s a craw hanging on. We used to catch them in ditches by the dozens like this as kids. 

[Catt]

Color expression in crawfish is regulated largely by special pigment containing cells (chromatophores) located beneath the exoskeleton, and color is normally a function of two factors, developmental stage and the environment. Most crawfish species are generally greenish or brownish as immature animals and begin to take on the characteristic colors as the approach maturity. Color manifestations is intensified in sexually mature individuals. The aquatic environment and diet also influence color.

 

Individual specimens of crawfish vary in color from the normal population. Color variants are almost endless with respect to degree and/or pattern of expression.

Molting is the periodic shedding of the old exoskeleton (shell) and takes place with each increase in size which can be 4-6 times a year; once the crawfish reaches maturity the molting process stops Each individual crawfish will vary in color before, during, & after molting!

 

DON'T BUILD TRAPS OUT WIRE MESH!

 

See below! $1.99 at Academy  ?

[Sifuedition]

Another little tip I've heard. Maybe some here can confirm/deny. Pay attention to the roughness of the bass's lips when you catch them. The hard shells tend to wear down the sandpaper like edge on their lips. The more crawfish they are feeding on, the less rough their lips will be. If you feel significant grip on the roughness of their lips, it is likely they are feeding much more on baitfish. I only heard that this year, but it sounded very logical. The local pond I fish the most has tons of shad, and I mean a lot. I have not seen one sign of crawfish. Their lips are very, very rough. It's too small of a sample size for me to confirm or deny, but, it is consistent, so far, with what I heard.

[BrackishBassin]

9 minutes ago, Sifuedition said:

Another little tip I've heard. Maybe some here can confirm/deny. Pay attention to the roughness of the bass's lips when you catch them. The hard shells tend to wear down the sandpaper like edge on their lips. The more crawfish they are feeding on, the less rough their lips will be. If you feel significant grip on the roughness of their lips, it is likely they are feeding much more on baitfish. I only heard that this year, but it sounded very logical. The local pond I fish the most has tons of shad, and I mean a lot. I have not seen one sign of crawfish. Their lips are very, very rough. It's too small of a sample size for me to confirm or deny, but, it is consistent, so far, with what I heard.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve avoided trying to mimic crawfish in this particular pond. Every fish I’ve caught there (PB included) had mouths so rough that I ended up bleeding if I was catching them really well, or they were decent sized. By the time I got my PB back in the water, I had blood dripping down my hand. My thumb was destroyed from one little shake he/she did when I was gettin the hook out. I figured they must be feeding almost exclusively on fish. But that can’t be true with the numbers of chimneys I’m seeing. The bank is literally littered with them.