Crayfish as Bait

I know a lot of channel fishermen consider frogs a prime bait for channels. Personally, I couldn’t hook the little critters (Nancy Boy). That got me to wondering, has anyone used crayfish with success and maybe even “accidentally” caught a flathead on a crawdaddy? I remember when bait stores used to stock crayfish. Now you have to hunt them yourself. I’ve never used them, but if I could catch some bigger ones I would like to give it a try. We used to catch some dandies in a storm sewer as a kid. Now I only see little ones in the rocky pools.

I digress, anyone have experience with crayfish?

I know they work really well for trout! A buddy of mine swears by them, and one day it was a pretty slow day so he went and caught some crayfish and outfished me 6-1 or so. There is a real fine line with using them in Wisconsin tho. You need a fishing license to catch them, you cannot posses fishing equipment and live crayfish at the same time (apparently dead ones are ok). So basically what my buddy does is bring his poles back to the truck come back catch his crayfish, kill the crayfish (dead ones are better anyway, because otherwise they hide in the rocks) then goes and gets his fishing poles and come back. There must be something about them that make them favorites to alot of fish…..smallies, LM, walleyes, trout…

I believe it’s Whiskerkev that has had success with them.

I can’t ever get them on the hook…bite of the tails and suck…mmmmm good!

Catdad works at a golf course/Five Star restaurant in Miesville…they made the best hushpuppies I’ve ever had…

Crawdad Hushpuppies

I would skip a night of fishing to have them again!

The bair shops down on this stretch of the river have crawdads but we don’t use them for catfish. Crawfish are the favorite bait of big sheephead. A few times a year we will get a couple dozen crawdad and head out to catch those 10 to 25 Lb sheephead. They absolutely love them and those big fish can be a ton of fun to catch. A 20 pounder will take every bit of 20 minutes to boat. They really put your equipment to the test.

I have been fishing with crawdads this way for many years and have not caught anything but sheephead. I am certian that flatheads, walleyes and other fish will eat them but I have not caught them. Freshwater Drum (sheephead) absolutely love crawdads and it is not unusual to go out for 3 or 4 hours and catch as many as 8 or 10 fish on crawdads.

Eyehunter

I have never used them for cats.. but I have caught many flatheads burping up crayfish in the bottom of the boat in the past.

This is from page 70 of the MN rule book.

Crayfish: From April 1-Nov. 30 licensed anglers and children under 16 may take and possess up to 25 pounds of crayfish longer than 1 inch for personal use. A DNR permit is required to import, transport or sell crayfish. Crayfish may be used as bait only in the body of water where they were captured. The use of live crayfish as bait on the St. Croix
National Scenic Riverway (north of the Boomsite Boat Launch) and within Voyagers National Park, units of the National Park System, is prohibited.

Brian if your serious and not just being smart my buddy would pinch the head and pinchers off and hook then from where the head was towards the tail and out thru the belly

Sometimes during the day if you drop a bluegill down in a likely deep spot with a crawfish on a drop shotted hook mounted 6 inches up line, you might get bit on the crawfish more often than the the gill. This is a vertical presentation that I often drift with with the gill on a musky jig.

Caught many crayfish on shiners bottom jigging at Leech. Just take the crayfish off, hook him through the tail and slowly retrieve over the flats. Great Walleye bait.

Also had a trap when I worked at a resort on leech. Nothing better that cleaning or just boiling up about 250 of the suckers with some salt and dill.

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This is from page 70 of the MN rule book.

Crayfish:Crayfish may be used as bait only in the body of water where they were captured.

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Seems kind of silly not to be able to transport them, although I suppose they could carry exotics, especially zebra mussels and their larva. I can’t imagine introducing crayfish into a body of water would be bad either. I don’t think anyone should be encouraged though to disturb a settled ecosystem with a new animal.

I was thinking that it might be a good experiment to attach a large crayfish to a hook and put a float on the leader to keep it from getting into the rocks and make it flap that tail in the open. I’ve got a hypothesis I’d like to test and that is that flatheads hunt by sound. I figure next to a bullhead, a crayfish might be the most noisey critter you could toss in the water.

So if you cannot transport crawfish without a license, it would explain why bait stores don’t sell them. This may be an experiment I try, if I can find a crayfish IN THE SAME BAODY OF WATER. Technically, doesn’t all water flow into the Mississippi at some point What the worse thing that could happen, I catch a smallmouth?

I don’t doubt that they’d be fantastic for drum. Anyone that has retrieved a hook in the back of a sheepies mouth knows what I am talking about. Don’t sheephead also have the ability to crack clam shells open and eat the meat inside?

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Seems kind of silly not to be able to transport them, although I suppose they could carry exotics, especially zebra mussels and their larva. I can’t imagine introducing crayfish into a body of water would be bad either. I don’t think anyone should be encouraged though to disturb a settled ecosystem with a new animal.

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Ever heard of the Rusty Crayfish?

DNR Rusty Crayfish

These have decimated a few lakes in the state. They most likely came in as bait.

Good idea to use a float. Wonder how long it could be active before burning itself out.

I have now! Maybe they should introduce these buggers to millfoil infested waters?

Yeah, I bet that crayfish would tire out pretty quickly, especially this time of the year. I also wonder if having a float on a swimming crawdad would foul up the rig regularily.

Why do I get this picture of the crayfish working on my leader with his pinchers, trying to free himself???

Obviously because you are crazy, my friend!

As far as milfoil control, they say that the studies are inconclusive and it isn’t worth the risk of another invasive species being introduced. I’d be willing to be that there are some milfoil-ed lakes with rusties in them.

Plus, bass guys love the millfoil. It’s pleasure boaters and jet skiers that don’t. Who do they think God created lakes for???

Here, guys go out of thier way and drive way across town when a baitshop has crawdads to fish for channels, they absolutely crush them when they hit them. Find a river thats coming up and fish near the weed edges thats going to be flooded in a few hours and you’ll fill your stringer. I don’t think theres a fish in the water that dosen’t eat crawfish, except maybe plankton eaters. Probably the reason why you guys can’t transport live crawfish is because they might upset the eco systems in perticular lakes, thats understandable. I know here in the smaller rivers when the agressive smallmouths are caught from the holes drift a crawfish on the bottom or under a bobber and you’ll pick up the more finicky or smarter ones. They ought to be really good for flatheads. We used to walk up creek or river with a 16′ seine with a friend on one end and me on the other and walk backwards kicking rocks and you can see the crawfish that are ending up in the net. On a good creek or river you can get 1/2 a 5 gallon bucket in a couple hours, then eat what you don’t use as bait. You can transport them in bedding or leaves just like night crawlers, don’t do it in water for very long or they die, keep the leaves shaded, moist and cool and you won’t loose any.

Back in the ’80’s when it was legal we used them quite a bit. We had a open storm sewer/stream running through the neighborhood and they were thick. The best ones for bait were the smaller ones. The big sunnies on White Bear used to hammer the 1″-1.5″ ones. They were only thing we ever caught smallies on W.B. using a spinnerbait with a crawdad on the back.

When we vacationed up at Mille a couple years ago there were millions of them near shore. You could have a serious boil! Some of them might have taken a chunck out of you though they were 5″-6″+ mini lobsters. Most of them gave you a 1 foot berth around each foot while wading near shore with the kids.

When the DNR banned transporting them (mid to late ’80’s?) there was a lot of talk about Rusty Crayfish and how they could decimate a lake. I didn’t notice anything naming them now, but I noticed earthworms are even “Exotic” now.

Ferny

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but I noticed earthworms are even “Exotic” now.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it!

Ferny, did it say “earth worms” or crawlers??

Guess is don’t matter really as one of my mom’s favorite storys as I was growing up was the time our back yard was flooded by rain. My Favorite Sister and I collected sand pails full of angle (earth) worms and night crawlers and dumped them onto the back steps. That was in the very late 50’s or very early 60’s.
Since we lived in town, I doubt that anyone transported them there.
Crayfish were found in all of the “new” rural tiling ditches in the late 60’s.

From what I have read, supposedly there are no native worms except one aquatic species!

DNR PAGE

My favorite quote:

Can earthworms be eliminated from forests?

Come on, if none existed here before Europeans arrived and they are everywhere, how are you going to eliminate them! I do look at those pictures in the article and can guarantee you I would never dump worms in a forest or on a shore near a forest. If you read it or don’t, the main concern is worms getting into our forest areas.

Now here’s a good reason to go pick night crawlers!

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In the urban setting, earthworm burrows can cause lumpy lawns.

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I’m sorry…although some education might be important for the “duff” layer…I think our state “grant” money could be better spent studing the effects of snagging flatheads in their wintering holes.

Pesonal opinion.

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I’m sorry…although some education might be important for the “duff” layer…I think our state “grant” money could be better spent studing the effects of snagging flatheads in their wintering holes.

Pesonal opinion.

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Who’s snagging flatheads in the middle of winter?