Crayfish trapping

I am looking to get into trapping crayfish this year as I love eating them. Do you guys have any tips on trap placement/design? 

When I was a kid we used to use liver on a cotton string, throw the string out put a rock on the end and watch for a bite,then slowly bring the string in.If you moved to fast they would take off.Some times if they where biting with two or three kids we could fill a five gallon bucket.We would clean them and my mom would cook them.

Regarding Rusty crayfish being good to eat, give me a pile of those over the natives any day. A) they're much larger, especially the claws, so more meat, and B) they're invasive so getting rid of as many as possible will only help that body of water. 

Apparently taking crayfish by hook and line is illegal according to the regulations. So something with an incredibly low success rate that is fun for kids to do is illegal, but you can use a big a$$ net to scoop up as many as you can fit in there or leave a trap soak overnight to get more than you'd ever get dangling a piece of worm in front of them. 

Leave it to the DNR...

As a kid we'd catch them on fishing rods along the shorelines of Green Bay/Sturgeon Bay.  Just put a nightcrawler on a hook and drop it by one.  They cling to the rocks pretty good but once free you can lift them out.  Some let go but most will hang on until you have them on shore.  We'd always cherry pick the large ones that way, going from dock to dock or whatever.

Back before VHS issues I would go in small rivers or creeks with a square smelt net and just walk backwards against the current, keeping the net in contact with the bottom.  They'd all swim into the net, quick way to get a lot.  I usually picked out the soft shells for fishing but if I were to have eaten them we'd have had a lot very quickly.

Look up Strawberry reservoir Crayfish Utah on Google When I lived out there we could fill a cooler with just tails and claws. just using chicken on a string, when you set out a dozen lines you couldnt keep up. drag it in slow over a landing net, scoop, and dump into a bucket. It got so busy all I was doing was ripping tails and claws while the wife and kids scooped. We had crayfish boils right on the spot a few times. The sucky part is cleaning them. Next day we would be processing tails and claws for 6 hours and our fingers would get all shredded. All for a little bit of meat. Wasnt worth it , except for the fun of it. The only place I know up north here is below winter dam. Last time I was there you could see hundreds but a lot of small ones. The chicken thing is only done at night. they were so abundant there, they were crawling up on shore and you could just walk the shoreline and grab them

Never heard anything bad about eating Rustys, I know know trapping them is encouraged by the DNR in lakes that have them because of the damage the inflict.

I just use the tails for bait.  We refer to the tails as either "Perch Crack" or "Panfish Heroin" because used in the right conditions, pannies go nuts as do smallies, walleyes, & of course rock bass.

Are rustys not good to eat ??

This is a slow process but kids love it!   Find a creek bank, dock,or any weedy, brushy shore where you suspect “ crabs” are nearby. Take a ball of old discarded mono and tie it to a string. Shove a piece of fish in the center of the mono and toss it in the water .tie the string to a suitable weed stick etc. when you see the string twitching you have a visitor.  Slowly pull,the string in . The “ crabs will be all tangled in the mono and can’t get loose lol. This works exc. in the daytime. Like running a trap line!!  CARPIO 

I set some near my place on Saturday night 6/28.  Checked them in the morning and we had 240 in 2 traps.  Highly recommend the extra large, square trap from Cabelas.  That one had roughly 175 and a conical one (also a minnow trap) about 50 yards away had about 60.

Used fish caught in the same body of water.  Worst part is 90% were Rusty Crayfish, so we're doing our part.

I set some in Mid-May and picked up 15 or so on an overnight soak.  Going up this weekend and plan to get the traps out both nights.

Anybody doing it yet.  Showed the five year old how the traps work yesterday. Probably should give it a go soon

I used to trap Plum Lake.  I would toss some traps in near the boat landing in Sayner.  Then zip down to the Rainbow to catch bullheads, run back to empty traps on way to cottage, sleep a few hours, then go get the traps again...  fun times

Are there certain times of the summer you do not want to eat crabs. Molting period, etc?

Agree with CD!  

I don’t fish for them anymore, but growing up on Plum, we’d put the scraps from the fish we cleaned into a minnow trap. The next morning the trap was as full as it could be. We had frequent crayfish boils!  

Present day you can still see crayfish at night shining a light off the piers. I have no doubt a guy could still clean house with minimal effort.  

Where are you?  I have some great trapping areas in central With.  We filled a 55 gal garbage can in a day and a half of trapping with 6 traps.  We use cut up pieces of carp stuffed into a section of old panty hose so they can’t eat all the bait.  Lots of lakes up north are good too.  Rocky areas best.  Set them at dusk and empty a few hours later then again on the AM.