crawfish crayfish crawdad mudbug whatever you want to call them. I like to catch them and eat them. How about you guys? It’s summer so it’s primetime for crawdads, at least it is in California. Does anyone else catch crawfish or build traps?
if you want to know how to build a trap check out my instructional video:
by the way this video has >21000 youtube hits!
I just took my kids crawdad fishing today. We used drop lines with paperclips on the end, and chunks of hot dog for bait. I have no idea how many they caught but in the first 10 minutes I would guess they had a dozen. We tossed them back, but still great fun for a 3 and 5 year old.
question: what are your favorite recipes for crayfish?
I was the Oregon State Crawfish eating champion 3 years in a row back in 2001-03. Mmmmm good.
this is how i cook my dads: throw live dads in boiling water for a few minutes. then rip off the edible parts (tails and big claws) and transfer to a pan with butter and garlic for another minute or two. done
butter and garlic? I wish the holy inquisition would condemn that 
!!!
My own recipe: throw the beast into a frying pan (with almost no oil) when they turn red, just drown those in champagne, when the champagne turns hot just get them out (they should not be overdone!). then enjoy the thrill of trying to get the flesh out …
other recipe: crayfish soup …
I guess they are different in different parts of the USA
Growing up near a lake in CT, we had small crawfish (mini fresh water lobsters), but we never ate them.
Down in Franklin, LA , mud bugs were inexpensive in season. I don’t know how they caught them, but they caught a whole bunch, bigger than CT crawfish also. There was this bar, Red’s bar, and they would have boils. The long tables where covered with paper and they would spread out hundreds of boiled bugs piled down the middle. They looked like little red boiled lobsters. No cover charge, just buy a beer and sit down and eat. I just pulled the tail off, then peeled and ate it like a shrimp. The taste is about halfway between lobster and shrimp, very similar. Some people would suck the heads, claiming that was the best part. I didn’t because I imagined it a bunch of muddy guts. No one ate the claws as I recall, they were to small.
It would be a big day at red’s, maybe 100 people lining the long tables eating and drinking, instead of their normal 10-20. That’s how they paid for all the bugs I guess. Beers was still 1$.
you catch that many with traps in the Louisiana swamps and wetlands. and the feast you mentioned is a crawfish boil.