Northwest Fishing Reports

I live by the Sammamish River (slough) and i was was wondereing if anyone knew how to catch Lots af crayfish with a certain bait or technique. Ialways see more outside my pots than in my pots. I can catch more with my hands than in my pots. Any advice would be awesome! Tight lines![thumbup]

Not only is there not crayfish in the Northwest as
we only have crawdads which is not the same as a crayfish, but it is also off topic.

But they are all good dipped in butter with tobasco...:chef:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crayfish

I disagree with that. They are the same and only called differently because of the region. The details such as color and size will differ because of habitat and food source. They are all in the same family and don't have distinct enough differences to split them up. Every area throughout the country will have differences in their species. I'm probably repeating myself because I am on my phone typing this, but you know what argument I am making. Some people say brown or green instead of small mouth and largemouth. Though they may slightly change by extreme habitat and food differences over the years. Or trout in the lower lakes vs those of higher elevation and water conditions/speed.

Fish-N-Fool wrote:Not only is there not crayfish in the Northwest as
we only have crawdads which is not the same as a crayfish, but it is also off topic.

One of my best buds is a coon@$$ and he was a commercial crayfish harvester for some years. Now he lives up here..... He says they're the same darn thing only ours get bigger! Every single Wiki and scientific article say many species spread across the globe all called crawdads, crayfish or crawfish. here's one wiki.

dads and fish

We actually have louisiana red craws in alot of lakes in washington and they get huge. They are straight from louisiana and live here just fine. Crawfish crawdad tomatoe tamatoe.

Ok ya'll, I moved this to the Shellfishing/Squid/Crayfish forum as it fits much better than in the Bass fishing forum.

Have fun eating your craydads.

Thank you for all of the feedback very much, but I was wondering if you guys could answer my question at the top, it would be greatly appreciated.

Better bait or a better pot.. Somethings weird if they are walking around your pot but not getting in...

Sometimes the best way to get em is throw on a snorkel and go flip over rocks on the bottom, grab the ones that scurry out... Great summertime activity...

I see you say you live near the Samm slough, head up to the plateau and drop some pots in Pine Lake, lots of those Lousiana craws that tnj mentioned....

Fish-N-Fool wrote:Although they are all related just as they are also related to ocean lobster but that does not mean it is the same thing. There are many, many sub species. If you took a crayfish from Lousianna and put it in a Washinton lake, not only would it not grow to the size they do here, but it would die.

There are three families of crayfish, two in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere. The southern-hemisphere (Gondwana-distributed) family Parastacidae lives in South America, Madagascar and Australasia, and is distinguished by the lack of the first pair of pleopods [5]. Of the other two families, members of the Astacidae live in western Eurasia and western North America and members of the family Cambaridae live in eastern Asia and eastern North America.

The greatest diversity of crayfish species is found in south-eastern North America, with over 330 sub-species in nine genera, all in the family Cambaridae. A further genus of astacid crayfish refered to as a crawdad is found in the Pacific Northwest and the headwaters of some rivers east of the Continental Divide. Many crayfish are also found in lowland areas where the water is abundant in calcium and oxygen rises from underground springs.[6]

Australia is another centre of crayfish diversity, with over 100 species in a dozen genera. Many of the better-known Australian crayfish are of the genus Cherax, and include the marron (Cherax tenuimanus), red-claw crayfish (Cherax quadricarinatus), yabby (Cherax destructor) and western yabby (Cherax preissii). The world's largest crayfish, Astacopsis gouldi, which can achieve a mass in excess of 3 kilograms, is found in the rivers of northern Tasmania.

Madagascar has a single (endemic) crayfish species, Astacopsis madagascarensis.

Europe is home to seven species of crayfish in the genera Astacus and Austropotamobius.

Cambaroides is native to Japan and eastern mainland Asia.

I'm glad to see you read the wiki and can pick and choose. Yet at the end of the day they're still all cray, craw, dad, fish in just about any combination. They all have little pinchers, they live in the mud and they taste great boiled. Not to mention they're called by the same names world round.

I'll go by what my Coon@$$ buddy says. I'd be willing beet he's had his hands on more than most.

See I can do the font and color thing too.....

When crayfish season opens in Washington, it's currently closed and won't be open until May, they will be a bit more active and willing to move to find the openings of your trap. Also, they like dark places, so if your entrance funnels are made up of material that will block light, you will have more success.

G-Man wrote:When crayfish season opens in Washington, it's currently closed and won't be open until May, they will be a bit more active and willing to move to find the openings of your trap. Also, they like dark places, so if your entrance funnels are made up of material that will block light, you will have more success.

G-man, that is a very good point about covering the entrance funnels to block out light. Also, Fullstringer 98,, as G said,, this is seriously the wrong time of year to be looking activity in the (mudbugs) I'll use that term just to stay out of the debate. Those things are burrowed down and inactive right now, and as was said... "Closed season" Put your winter time into getting your traps dialed in.

For some good mudbug reading, check out:
http://www.terrybullard.com/CrawfishMain.html

Bodofish wrote:Mudbugs.... WTF Where you from boy????

I'm from right here,:colors: But my wife hails from Lafayette, LA. We go down there quite a bit and eat are way into oblivion. This is the time of year when crawfish/crayfish/mudbugs etc. are in season. We will sit out on the back porch with the moss hanging from the trees, swamp style. A little later in the year snakes come up out of the cooly into the yard. Rattlers, water moccasins and such. Get about 5 lbs of boiled crawfish, cold beer, and just listen to sounds of the night. Good times for sure.
The "Sounds of night" back here for me, are more like fire engines and freaks of the night.

Hehehe just screw'in with ya.... Mudbugs.... almost forgot that one. If ya line up 10 people at a "mudbug" feed and ask 'em what they're eat'in you'll 5 or 6 different answers. All the same little critters.....

The Quadfather wrote:I'm from right here,:colors: But my wife hails from Lafayette, LA. We go down there quite a bit and eat are way into oblivion. This is the time of year when crawfish/crayfish/mudbugs etc. are in season. We will sit out on the back porch with the moss hanging from the trees, swamp style. A little later in the year snakes come up out of the cooly into the yard. Rattlers, water moccasins and such. Get about 5 lbs of boiled crawfish, cold beer, and just listen to sounds of the night. Good times for sure.
The "Sounds of night" back here for me, are more like fire engines and freaks of the night.

I got plenty of beer money. In season now though? Its February in LA too man...

Holly crap... weather.com says 78 deg today down there and mid 70's the rest of the week.

So... When do we leave?

fullstringer98 wrote: I live by the Sammamish River (slough) and i was was wondereing if anyone knew how to catch Lots af crayfish with a certain bait or technique. Ialways see more outside my pots than in my pots. I can catch more with my hands than in my pots. Any advice would be awesome! Tight lines![thumbup]

Back to the original question, how to catch them.

Years ago while camping up at Brown's lake, a guy invited me to go crawdad hunting one evening. Since I had never done that before, I said sure. We gathered up a couple of buckets, two Coleman lanterns, a six back of beer and headed down to Halfmoon Lake around 11:00 PM. When we arrived, he lit the two lanterns, set them on the shoreline and we sat back on a log and opened a couple of beers. I asked him when we were going to go crawdad hunting. He replied, "We are, keep an eye on the shoreline!" It was about this time I was starting to think this guy was a real cupcake.

About 15 minutes later, the shoreline started to turn a burnt orange. There were dozens of them crawling up towards the light. He then handed me a bucket and a set of long mechanical fingers and we proceeded to pick them up off the bottom. We later went back to the campsite where he and his wife cleaned them up and cooked them. He laughed and said, "Poor Man's Lobster is great, isn't it!"

Decades later I was out at Amber Lake and was the last off the lake. While I was loading up my boat at the launch, I remembered that evening. Just for kicks, I turned on my headlights that were shining into the water. Sure enough, within about 15 minutes, I could see them marching up towards the shore. Why they do that, I don't know, but it seems to work.

Do you think tying a glowstick on the trap would work the same way? I hope so! Maybe it will work like it did for Marc Martyn with big lights.

Well, I dont know if this would work in lakes-rivers etc.
But at my aunts house up in WA, she had a stream that ran threw it.
My cousins and I put some bologna in the water, when out later that night,
at about 11 or so. And there were crawdads piled on top of the bologna.