Hi folks basicly the question is as above, if anyone could give me some info on them & what theyre like to eat, how to cook, im sure ive heard their tasty so best methods of capture also would be good

Healthy

Well you could try..http://lmgtfy.com/?q=crayfish

brilliant

im going to catch some of these yum yum

MMMMMmmmmmm......................

Catch using a trap with a small can of catfood half opened. Once caught, put them in a bath of cold water for at least 24 hours with porridge oats poured in, this will purge them of all the shite they eat.

Cook em up for a few minutes in boiling salted water and server with a prawn cocktail like sauce.

its illegal to put them back when you catch them ..............

Capture and eat, nasty blighter's are decimating the natural uk stock of crayfish

I know a guy,studied fisheries management,his job now,for which he is paid incredibly well,is to trap crayfish and do seine netting and electro fishing for fish surveys,I made an awesome trap from an old fishing keep-net I bought at a car-boot sale for a fiver,knitted some funnels and bobs your uncle,had over 150 crays in a night,some areas are infested,never eat them though,I just gave them to a mate.

mmm...am doing a IfM course at the moment...

I would love to do one,but sadly I am a bit thick

I aint the brightest niether...course cost 140quid and ya do it at home!

Fucking hell,I guess even I could manage that then,I could cheat and get one of the kids to help me

Hi i have just bought a trap £4.99.just google crayfish traps its the secound one down.good luck

thats the way!

not sure if I am right on this, but i think you need a licence or summit to catch them from the enviroment agency...??

I think catching a few here and there can make the problems worse..

the license is a rod license - you deffo dont need one to net stuff with or every little kid with a little net at the beach would need a Junior rod license

as for purging them - dont bother - you can boil them and eat them immediately if you remove the digestive tract same as a prawn

they are mighty tasty for annoying little buggers - I prefer a squeeze of lemon and a dab of mayo with mine!

although you used to just need a rod licence,i think that changed in 2005 and as far as i know rollem up is correct on both counts

also im not sure the traps that Dooby66 brought are the right traps as they are for sea fishing and would possibly be illegal to use,and dangerous for other waterway animals.

some further information can be found here

or if you contact stuart maskell on 01480 483 968 at the environment agency he'll send you a crayfish advice pack..

jesus H corbett you're right I checked with the EA - not only do you need a rod license but you ALSO need a crayfish permit - at least the permit is FOC!

We have these little cunts in Scotland now.. They have taken over all of Loch Ken and a couple of surrounding rivers have them now and there is a good head of them now in the upper Clyde and even some of the productive salmon rivers on the east have found a few. Seems they are here to stay unfortunately..

A couple of years ago i planned on trapping and selling the Scottish ones to some of the hotels etc but when i enquired to the environment agencies i came across a whole load of red tape. I spoke to LOADS of different people from fisheries departments to professors studying them and environment people etc.

In tests they have proved that removing crayfish (usually the bigger ones that are removed) leaves loads of wee ones which have no predators in many burns/lochs/rivers which effectively make the problem several times worse each year. Same happens with pike if someone decides to kill the big ones in the loch - it gets polluted with small ones and cant be reversed.


So, the new tactics have came about and in the next few years they hope to test them out here in Scotland. The professor i spoke to was really informative and hated the little fuckers and told me that the newest weapon against them will be chemicals what kill crayfish and dont harm fish will be used. They have tested it in trials and found it to be really effective and as we dont have any (or VERY FEW) native crays up here the chemicals should work great. There will be no removal of crayfish in Scottish waters unless a license has been approved which i have been told will never happen here. I hope they have made the correct decision here because at 15+ quid a kilo i reckoned i could have 500 traps bought and set by the next week if they let me! I might make some more phonecalls this week and find out the lastest update on these wee things as its been a year or so since i last spoke to anyone who is dealing with them up here.

The calculated income lost from local tourism to crayfish here is crazy now. I remember seeing in the news that it was into millions lost as fishermen are now just driving further north to areas they can fish without crays. Im not sure how much will be lost as the last time i was down at loch ken there was still shit loads of keen geordies trying their luck for the pike!


Anyhoo's. here, in Scotland, the law is as clear as mud. You cant keep them and take them home as thats illegal (dead or alive transportation is illegal) and you cant return them as that is also illegal! I asked about eating them lochside and he advised me that although its probably still illegal thats about the only way you can get round it.

In England you still need a license im pretty sure of that but i think you can basically apply on the back of your cornflakes box for one. I think its probably just so they can send you advice on how to spot signals from natives and give you size regulations for your traps so animals cant get stuck in them etc.

It must be a real challenge for the 'experts' out there trying to get rid of these eh. Personally i think trapping cant be as bad as sitting on our arses doing nothing as they are taking over our waterways.

Ive never tried the wee buggers but next time im down there i might have a wee nosey about for some and throw some on the embers of a fire to taste them. They look pretty nice but ive also heard of them tasting very peaty/muddy without a purge for a few days.

IDB,I know a guy who traps them and clears or attempts to clear lakes of them for a living,makes decent money as well