I am really craving crawfish this week, but when I tried to get into some over memorial day I came up empty, does anyone know any lakes where they are active yet? I am in lindon and would love to find a place relatively close i could fill a bucket with some mud bugs. I was going to check out strawberry on my way past but my boys really wanted to get home so we didn't stop. It is probably a little early for strawberry though. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have a couple of traps and would love to fill them with some bugs.
Jed Burton
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Settlement canyon...Tooele. Caught a bunch last week on chicken drumsticks on a string. They are crawlin all over up there. fun for the kiddos!
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Here is a link wiht a map on the bottom
[url "http://www.goingoutside.com/lake/110/1109883_Settlement_Canyon_Reservoir_Utah.html"]http://www.goingoutside.com/lake/110/1109883_Settlement_Canyon_Reservoir_Utah.html[/url]
They were right off the road that you walk down before the pay station on the east side fairly close in. I think its not too bad of a drive for ya. It is free to go to if you stop before the station. Good Luck and take some pics!!
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what size were the ones you were catching?
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I'd say about 4-5".(with pinchers)...standard size to me from what I have seen.
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anyone know if they are going at deer creek or strawberry?
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I was at Strawberry on Sunday and saw quite a few but not a one in my traps the whole time I was there. I ended up spending an hour with my kids catching them with our minnow net. I was at Chicken Creek East and Soldier Creek. They are not very active though.
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did you see more in chicken creek east or soldier creek? how many did you end up with and what size were most of them? I probably won't be able to get out til friday and hopefully they will be more warmed up by then,
jed
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I have never had much luck at the berry using traps. I have however, caught one through the ice when I was night fishing.
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There were slightly more on the Soldier Creek side. I ended up with about 35-40 just walking back and forth in the water and catching them one at a time. Had fish guts in the trap and let it soak for about 2 hours and not a one.
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[cool]Thanks for the update. Sounds like it won't be too much longer before the cradading gets good at 'da berry. I'd guess another week or two...
Bassackward and I went to Settlement Res. the other night and the views were nice and so was the fresh air and the rain, but the crawdading sucked. Got 4 in like two hours. Had one trap out and 4 handlines with a drumstick attatched... Wouldn't recommend that place, at least not yet. There were bank tanglers catching stocked 8 inch 'bows though, so if you wanna get your littles into some tiny stocked fish, that's a good place to go right now...
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They get real active the first week of July at the berry. Right now most othe crawdads are going to have eggs and they are molting as well
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Me and the family go every year. The July months are usually better than June. I personally like Schofield alot better than the other crawdad sites. I find Schofield to have bigger and more quantity than most of the other lakes.
There is a sign next to the Schofield dock that says you cannot fish off the docks however if you clean up after yourself and ask the person at the little shop next to the docks they will most likely tell you it's okay to crawdad there.
We filled a cooler in about a half hour last year in July with only me and my wife and my daughter using strings and chicken thighs. The best method is chickn thighs because the skin and meat allow the crawdads to hang on tight as you pull and scoop them up with a strainer.
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i finally ended up going to renegade and trying for some fishing and crawfishing on friday. the fishing was awfully slow between storms but I did manage one nice cut. the crawdadding was really slow. I caught a few along the shore and after 5 hours managed 4 in the traps. It might be a while yet.
Jed Burton
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so what kind of chicken legs/thighs work best? Original recipe or extra crispy? How 'bout the new grilled style?
Or are they raw.
(never have tried that, and I think my son would quite enjoy it. He often prefers snake/frog hunting over fishing for hours on end.)
So are you using them for bait, or having a crawfish boil? The "old guys" in Chicago always seemed to have fresh molts from "somewhere" that rocked the perch!!
Going to Mantua and maybe Willard too over the weekend. Anyone know if those puddles hold some mudbugs too? I'd expect Willard would - my first and only Wiper nailed a crawdad crankbait! Though I couldn't temp any with soft plastic versions, or a good looking gulp variety. Was hoping a Walleye might like that sort of treat.
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Gotta go for the Raw Chicken thighs! We use them for a boil never really tried them for bait but the kids love it. My daughter is the same way if she isn't gettin bites while fishing she gets disinterested pretty quick but with the crawdad method it's constant watchin them come out of every corner to go after the chicken and then pulling them in and scooping. The trick is bringing a strainer so the water runs through it and the crawdads stay in! I've seen people with just bowls and while there were 10 crawdads on the chicken they only manage one in the bowl.
As for the KFC it's better to eat that than use it for bait although I did catch a pretty big rainbow on a piece of KFC orginal chicken when I was messing around catching crawdads I left my pole on a bobber with orginal chicken at the end on the bank and it nearly pulled my pole in the water before I noticed my bobber was gone and line was all lose. Tried a few times after with the colonel special recipe it did not work ever again.
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If you buy whole cut up chickens at the store, save the backs. They are only good for broth and crawdad bait. Freezer burn doesn't seem to matter to the dads, so you can save them all year.
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