I was thinking about going out and catching some crawdads from shore at strawberry or something just wondering if it's still doable this time of year or is it getting to cold for them any info would be appreciated thanks in advance
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It is not too cold yet. You should be able to get plenty of them with little to no effort.
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yeah this is probably the best time to get them at the berry imo. just tie some chicken onto some rope and put about 3 feet out into the water. night time is the best ive found. then take a dim flashlight and follow your rope and your chicken will be covered. should be able to get two+ 5 gallon buckets full of them in just a few hours or so
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No, nowhere near to cold yet. If anything, still a bit warm. They seem to have a "mossy" taste still. That goes away in a few weeks as it cools down.
Fall is the best because you have the highest amount of large ones, they have been growing all season, molting, geting bigger and bigger.
Like was said above, chicken on a string works wonders. I like the chicken backs, because, really, what else can you do with a chicken back except make broth. When I buy whole cut up chickens at the store I throw the back in a baggie in the freezer to use for crawdads. Poke a hole in it with a knife, tie on a string (I like about 12' of string) tie it off on shore, (because they will pull it out) and wait a few minutes. In the daytime you can see the white chicken back go black as the dads cover it. Then I slowly lift the back of the bottom and slip my net under it. Then I lift the chicken up, dads and all.
This time of year I seperate the big from the small and only keep the biggest, 3" gets thrown back, above 3' I keep.
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Seriously 10 gallons of dads in a few hours? I had no idea they could be so cooperative! Maybe I shoulda chucked chicken instead of worms at Willard!
So you're talking a few minutes or like 20 or so before pulling in?
Lavaman - we may have to take some flies spinners AND chicken legs and try that 'Berry! Might be worth the trip.
TubeDude had a nice lil writeup on prepping the bugs. If you haven't seen it. might find helpful.
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I've only ever fished for them at the Berry, never Willard.
It depends on the area and the dads as to how long I let the chicken soak. Most times you can se the chicken fade from view as the dads cover it. Most times I also have several strings out, 5 or so. When I do this I just keep working along from string to string and never stop, just doing a loop from string 1 to string 5 and back to string 1. It takes me on average about an hour of this to fill a 5 gal bucket with whole dads when I'm near the dam at Soldier Creek on a good day.
3 hour drive up and back, an hour of daddin and an evening of good eating after 2 hours of pulling the tails out there at the lake. I also like to kill them by purging them in salt water. I pour a full pound of salt into a 10 gallon tough and add about 3 gallons of water. In go the dads. The salt water makes them puke and after a few pukes they die from the concentration of salt. Then I pull them out and put them on ice or directly into a boil. Most of the time I pull the vein out of their tail as I transfer them from the salt water bath. Sometimes I just put them straight into a pot of boiling water while alive with TWO boxes of Zatarains or Old bay, a couple of halved lemons, a whole garlic worth of garlic cloves and 1/2 bottle of hot sauce. When I do that I snack on them all the way home and end up with less than a bucket full when I get back to SLC.
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yeah no joke. my brother, me, sister, and father went to the berry last september at night and caught almost five 5 gallon buckets worth of crawdads. me and my sister setup 4-5 strings as mentioned above and walked between them and netted them. my dad and brother were "cleaning" them while we caught them. we were there for about 3-4 hours or so. they are really good cooked as mentioned above, or cook them without the hot sauce and after use the meat in some alfredo. this is makin me want to get some this weekend
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Zatarans crab boil is awesome. Add corn, garlic, and a few citrus fruits. I was fishing from the shore the other day around Haw's point and the things were EVERYWHERE! Now is a good time to go.
One clarification though: If you're throwing out bait for crawdads, you can only have 5 strings in the water at one time. 5 strings per licensed angler, that is. It's plenty! Plus, I can catch tons of them by just wading with a net and scooping them up.
Good luck!
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Plus the ones my son has out.
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