Crayfish ?

[Fenlander]

You can also catch them by baiting a trap with cheese

This should aid identifying them correctly

http://www.efishbusiness.co.uk/formsandguides/part01.asp

 

[Laurence Dell]

A method of catching them that I have been meaning to try that I had heard of was to get an old pair of boots, tie the laces together and a bit of rope to the laces then put some bait inside the boots and chuck them into the river and stake the rope to the bank or tie to a tree and come back in the morning. When you come back in the morning quickly yank the boots out by the rope and tip the contents out into a bucket.
Voila crayfish for breakfast I just hope they don't taste of the smell of my old boots

 

[Kepis]

I am confused, ye ye i know its not something new , can you catch signal crayfish ? i understand that our native crayfish are protected, but what about the Yank invaders? from what i understand, you can catch them but need a permit to do so, can anyone clear this up for me. Yours Den

As far as i am aware if you catch a signal crayfish it is illegal to return it to the water as it is a non native species, i fished a competition once where we all caught shed loads of them and nobody knew what to do with them so we queried it with the environment agency after the comp and were told "off the the record" that we could do whatever we wanted with them as long as we did not put them back in the water as they are decimating our native species.

 

[The Joker]

I watched a Hugh Fearnley Witty thingy (wild food) and he caught an american crayfish cooked it and ate it.
Surely if that was illegal he would not of televised it.
Just a thought

 

[Dennis Mapletoft]

Ok so have i got this straight!
you can catch crayfish: but need a licience, and then only keep the catch if they are signals, but to make them edible they have to purge in fresh clean water for several days, i want to eat them NOW thanks all for the help and advise, i am slowly getting through it all, the gov site are a nightmare, left hand and right hand fighting.. Yours Den

 

[Kane]

Wasn't there another crayfish thread that came to the conclusion that you didn't have to purge them first - just remove the gut ala prawns?

Kane

 

[sourdough]

Hi Folks

On the legal side of catching them, it appears to differ in Scotland as compared to England. I have talked with the Head Water Balliff locally. As it is not a native species it is illegal for me to take a signal crayfish out unless they issue a directive. In Yorkshire I was told, " just go ahead and take 'em out"

A good way to catch them is to make an open topped cage or use something like a chimney cowl and have a line attached to it. In the cage you place rotten meat again. When you can see them enter the cage below you pull it up. That came from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook. It has a very good few pages on crayfish.

anyway....I'm off, I need beer

Sourdough

 

[Forager]

Signals (american) crayfish can be distinguished from the native white clawed cray by the red on the underside of its claws - it's very distinctive. It also waves those claws around a lot. Word is that if you find signals there won't be any white clawed crays around.