jmplsnt
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Purging CraysI was born and raised in Louisiana in the US. Catching and eating crawfish (though 'crays" is growing on me, just like "catty" is a multi-million dollar industry.
We purge ours instantaneously by pouring salt over them LIVE just before they are boiled. Give them ten to fifteen minutes to purge, then hit them with a water hose and of course dump out the mess. Rinse again and then dump the whole affair into your boiling water. We boil ours live here as well.
I hope this helps all of you cray-catchers out there.
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statikpunk
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thanx jmplsnt i love catchn' crawdads in the summer, thats a goodtip that i have never done before. im guessing that purging technique "cleans" out their systems better than just letting em sit in water for a while.
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fish
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intresting thing that.we have american signal crays in plague proportions here , to purge them i sit them in clean water and feed them potatoe peelings,also if you add garlic to the water they taste good too!
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wabbiter
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I dont usually purge, i just eat claws and tails[ with intestine stripped from tail ]  ...mack
i guess living on a canal helps eh?!! 
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statikpunk
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holy crap! couldn't we have had this conversation a little closer to the season!!! now I'm craving em'  
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wabbiter
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no crayfish season over here ..mack
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kent taxidermist
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there a pest over here
your suppose to have a licence for crayfish traps here... but this is jacks shed and i dont think to many of the members are on good terms with the environment agency :P
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wabbiter
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they'e only a pest if you cant find any ..mack
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fish
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tonnes round here!
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fish
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tonnes round here!
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statikpunk
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Oh I we dont have a "season" as in regulations on them either....what i meant was is that you cant find them over here where im from right now the water is too muddy from runoff. i dont go searching for em until late summer and early fall, when the waters get low and i can pick them out of the river by hand....can you guys catch them all year long over there??
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wabbiter
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if you've got a licence   you can....mack 
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kent taxidermist
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statik punk
use a pot!
bait with scap pieces of meat or dog food!
fashion something like the shape of this
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statikpunk
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yeah I built a trap one time, but wasn't very successful with it, there are no holes in any of my rivers deep enough to hold more than a few crawdads..its easier and more productive to walk through the middle of the river flipping over rocks and scooping em up with nets..during the summer non of our rivers run deeper than a couple feet, so its real easy to just wade through em. but right now the water is too high, fast, and muddy. do you get a lot when you use a trap??
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wabbiter
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i have a trap very simular to KTs, its about 12" wide and 30" long, i use cheap smelly cat/dog food ,my best result was 29 crays in one night, trap was put out 10 o'clock at night and picked up 9.30 in the morning....mack
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kent taxidermist
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i use to have a couple of those pots used them for shrimping, put a mackeral in in and come back a tide later and you used to get half a kilo of shrimp! the only weak points about those pots is the zips!
they were nice but cos they were small they were a pain to peel!
and the cray water i used to set them on was a chalk steam so there was only a couple of ft depth if that, just find the deep holes if there are any, also try place it under any undercut banks or near tree roots etc etc.
signal crayfish are very dominant so you often find a pot with a single big one this is because this is the first one in the pot and the others wont go near its new turf!
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statikpunk
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wow thats a good haul ....you guys probably dont go crazy over crawdads because you can get good seafood anytime you want to. but over here in my desert any kind of fresh seafood is like gold!
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