Crayfish Pest on River Waveney

[benacre]

As usual before groundbaiting i cast out a lead with two red maggots, Nice 4lb 40z Bream. So in went the groundbait. some nice pulls and nothing. soon found out the Turkish Crayfish rife in the River waveney had moved in. The river was a warm 51f and it looks as though they were feeding on every hook bait i put on. Tried putting a small cork ball on the hook length but the crayfish still attacked. I was pleased with my Bream but the crayfish ruined the rest of the afternoon

[chevin]

As usual before groundbaiting i cast out a lead with two red maggots, Nice 4lb 40z Bream. So in went the groundbait. some nice pulls and nothing. soon found out the Turkish Crayfish rife in the River waveney had moved in. The river was a warm 51f and it looks as though they were feeding on every hook bait i put on. Tried putting a small cork ball on the hook length but the crayfish still attacked. I was pleased with my Bream but the crayfish ruined the rest of the afternoon

 

 

Take a little camping stove, a small pan, cook 'em up and eat them! If you can't use them for bait it's a great way to deal with them.

[Guerilla]

Benacre, the EA think there aren't any crayfish in the Waveney according to this recent article!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8185027.stm

 

Not sure where the place in question is (Peter Waller may?) but as it's a Yacht station I'm guessing it's more downstream than the sections you're fishing?

Anderoo is having similar problems. There may be some useful suggestions here.

[Anderoo]

I don't know how much use this is, and you probably know it already, but these are my findings with crayfish:

 

- they are more active in coloured water than clear water

- they are more active in warm water than cold water

- when they're active, any bait on the bottom will get taken

- they respond to baiting up: the more bait you put out, the more crays arrive

- baits off the bottom are usually OK

- they eat a lot (I once watched a fairly small cray hoover up a fist-sized ball of bread mash in about 2 minutes)

- they make an excellent 'crunch' noise when you dispach them (as required by law)

 

I don't know if they're canabalistic, but I'm beginning to think that the ideal crayfish-proof bait is a small crayfish (for perch and chub). (Illegal though.)

 

The problem I often have is that I need to have a bait hard on the bottom. In that situation I honestly don't know how to deal with them, other than just fish through them and hope.

 

I do often wonder whether a load of crays munching away on bread mash or chopped worm actually helps bring in fish like perch and chub.

 

The only thing I can think of for your situation is to float-fish and keep the bait off-bottom, and pray for cooler weather!

[Chris Plumb]

- baits off the bottom are usually OK

 

Or not! I've had crays on trotted maggot and on trotted bread - from fast shallow swims too!

 

 

C.

[Steve Walker]

I fished a crayfish infested length of the upper Thames yesterday evening and wasn't bothered by them - my method doesn't seem to pick out the bigger fish, though

 

 

Had about a dozen fish, mostly dace with a few chub, nothing over about 4oz, but good fun all the same. Hitting dace on the fly is, erm, challenging!

 

I had a chat with a bloke who owns a stretch of the river and lives by it - he blames the poor fishing on that stretch on the crayfish (personally I think there are probably other factors), but he is trapping and eating hundreds of crays each week without making a dent in the population. That's a lot of biomass - what are they pushing out, I wonder?

[Jan O]

Hi Steve, in my Swedish lakes there are millions of crayfish and they have never endangered any other fish or species... On the contrary, both Eel, perch, and pike enjoy eating them. Some Perch even specialize in crayfish and this shows in some of the fish fins, they almost burn in red, beautiful fish... Im enclosing one of them.... But, in the lakes that contain char for example, crayfish is beeing blamed for eating fisheggs... the original swedish crayfish was no problem but the american signal crayfish that has replaced the swedish enjoys much deeper water, where the char spawns, and is therefor a threat... Next week we start the yearly fishing for crayfish to eat, they are lovely. Boiled in water, salt, dill and onions... and to this you drink swedish snaps until you drop... an old viking tradition

 

 

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quote name=Steve Walker' date='Aug 10 2009, 10:05 AM' post='2691226]

I fished a crayfish infested length of the upper Thames yesterday evening and wasn't bothered by them - my method doesn't seem to pick out the bigger fish, though

 

 

Had about a dozen fish, mostly dace with a few chub, nothing over about 4oz, but good fun all the same. Hitting dace on the fly is, erm, challenging!

 

I had a chat with a bloke who owns a stretch of the river and lives by it - he blames the poor fishing on that stretch on the crayfish (personally I think there are probably other factors), but he is trapping and eating hundreds of crays each week without making a dent in the population. That's a lot of biomass - what are they pushing out, I wonder?

[wunnus]

Crayfish tails make excellent bait for Perch.

Sorry that my experience is limited to one particular lake.

[Rusty]

I don't know if they're canabalistic, but I'm beginning to think that the ideal crayfish-proof bait is a small crayfish (for perch and chub). (Illegal though.)

 

Only in the eyes of the Law .Got to be worth a try if only to see if it solves a problem. Next time you dispatch one be careful not to get your hook too close to its tail and then be careful not to cast the whole lot into the water.

[yorkio]

I had a chat with a bloke who owns a stretch of the river and lives by it - he blames the poor fishing on that stretch on the crayfish (personally I think there are probably other factors), but he is trapping and eating hundreds of crays each week without making a dent in the population. That's a lot of biomass - what are they pushing out, I wonder?

One theory is that as big crayfish like to eat small crayfish, removing crayfish of an appropriate size for the table is a good recipe for provoking a population explosion of the little ones, as you're removing one of their most significant predators. (So just like pike, really.)