I have been setting traps for crayfish the last week and half, so far this is my fourth attempt. The first three were fruitless, in my first attempt, in Lake Washington, the bait had gone bad and the second two were in a pond near my house; I used fresh bait but the only thing netted was 3 Pumpkin seeds, I don’t think there are Crayfish in the pond.

I decided to head back down to the Lake Washington, to a spot that I had thought would be promising. I found some else’s net or really the ropes to their nets. I didn’t want to fish the same area so I moved up to another spot that I had thought would be promising. I had explored this spot before, for fish, and hadn’t really paid attention to the details that make it Crayfish friendly. This time around I looked. Plenty of rocks in the water, fallen trees and upturned roots, a lot of baitfish and a discernable current, it looked very promising. I set the trap, and threw it in, the time was roughly 9:15 pm. I had to go to work so I thought I would pick it up at around 7 am, not optimal but it’s what I could do. My daughter had become interested in what I was doing and wanted to go retrieve the net, so I told her I would pick her up on the way over there.

We went to the spot with excitement and trepidation. I pulled the trap in and there they were. Our trap had about 5 Signal Crayfish, all legal. They scaled out at ½ lb with the largest one accounting for half of that by himself. It wasn’t the amount that I was looking for but at least I am now in the right area and now have to play with bait and placement. We took our catch home and my daughter had her first taste of Crayfish.

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