Crawfishing

Paul and his boat with a mud runner motor for the shallow water.
Wendell prepares a trap.
Nanc wants those mudbugs so bad she is lending a hand.

Adding water to the field.

Paul placing stakes for the traps.

Lines of traps in a nearby field.

Nanc in April getting ready to chow down.

A large crawfish we had in April.

We went with Wendell from Betty's to a see a South Louisiana aquaculture project. Paul Broussard raises crawfish near the RV park. The farming starts in April or May when the water is drained from the fields which causes the crawfish to burrow into the mud. He then plants grain to grow during the summer. Many farmers plant rice in their fields but Paul prefers not to. In November or December he floods the field with about a foot of water. The crawfish then come out of the ground and eat the grain. When they are big enough for harvesting he places stakes in the water and places the baited traps on the stakes. There are two stakes for each trap so as he goes down a row he places a new baited one on the first stake, takes the trap off the second one, empties and rebaits it, then places it on the first stake of the next trap. He goes up and down the rows harvesting the crawfish. The harvest goes on into April or May when the fields are once again drained. Many of the fields here have been damaged by the intrusion of salt water from the hurricane surge. Paul's lower field was damaged by salt water so he must wait until it washes out before he can use it again. He is 20 miles from the gulf but he found a large stingray and a drum on his property after the last storm. As I said in the previous post, the crawfish we ate last week were small but tasty. When we had them in April near the end of the season they were MUCH BIGGER.