Crawdads at Rose pond

[Bardic]

So, we've gone to Rose pond for the last 2 nights to catch crawdads. First night we threw in some traps and then walked along the shore grabbing crawdads with a net. Managed about 30 nice sized ones, we didn't bother for anything that would fit through the holes in our net.

We left the traps there intending to come back in the morning but didn't manage it until the following evening. So one trap in the shallows was stolen, but the other two in deep water were fine, only 1 in one trap and 3 in the other. Next time I am just taking them out while it is still dark. At least the one that was stolen is the one I made from instructions here, 2-3 dollars isn't bad, and I knew I was taking a chance by leaving it visible.

Last night we went out again, more nets, and more head lamps, and we were prepared to wade, so we came back with 147 total. There were tons of little baby crawdads that we didn't try for but we got pretty good at the big ones. We'd wade through the shallows until it was too muddy to see, then move to a new spot and let the mud settle before coming back around. Should have a good crawdad boil come friday.
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[maghunter]

making me hungry. I did a little diving yesterday at Ririe to see how the water conditions were. Visibility is about half of what it normally is this time of year and I didn't see a single crawfish. I was only there for about 30 minutes so I didn't hunt around to hard. Take a picture of your crawfish boil for us. I've got to go get me some this summer.
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[mudsucker]

What kind of nets are you using? The best place we know is alkali and you can't see under an inch, but the second best place is clear.
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[Bardic]

One of the rubber nets with the honeycomb type holes. They only had short handled ones last year, but they had some longer ones this year. We popped the end off of it and used the extentions from a pool skimmer to extend it even more the first night. The second night we used two tent poles on the second net to get some added reach. Then when we deicided to wade the normal length was fine.

We were up past our knees in some places, but it was pretty hard to see the bottom at that point, and the wind had to be very still. Maybe if the ponds go down more in the fall we can just wade around most of the shore without having to contend with the willows.
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