Crayfish

[Chris Plumb]

Yup - ALL crays are banned as bait. To protect the native species and prevent the spread of alien species and the disease they carry which has been attributed to the decline of the natives.

Signals make good eating - a friend of mine catches them for the pot. He applied for, and got, a licence from the EA to catch signals with a trap. Strictly speaking fishing with such a 'fixed engine' is illegal otherwise. The licence was for his own personal consumption covered the Thames Region and was free! He was also supplied with an identification chart so as to identify any native crays and return same.

 

Chris

[gorton]

In my local River Lee some streches have been rendered useless by the amount of American signal crayfish in them and they have driven the native species out completely if not to extinction.

They have one good use though which is as good barbecue grub or using the tail meats in curries etc. A few weekends ago some friends and I caught 446 in the space of 2 hours with only four nets.

We have had a few run ins with the local baliff who has told us that we are not allowed to fish for them and in the next breath informs us how dreadful the fishing is now because of them and how he no longer sells any daytickets for the fishery.

The EA is now putting up notices prohibiting crayfishing on a food poisioning scare, this is a nonsense I have been eating them for the last 3 years and I dont seem to have grown an extra head on any new limbs, could it be they would like to charge for the priviledge of fishing for them? That I could understand if somebody was fishing for them commercially but not when it is being done for fun.

Its about time they stopped spending money on notices and tried to eradicate them from the Lee system, they are spreading like wildfire and soon no one will be fishing the river and we all know what happens to rivers when they are neglected, ten years ago you would not have got a swim on this stretch of the river after 07.00 on a summer weekend now you can have your pick I wonder why, I for one do not want to spend my time fishing carpholes alone.

Come on the EA get your act together and do something about it.

[Newt]

gorton - not possible to eradicate them except by killing all life in the river. All.

 

Control is possible though. Just make sure the area has plenty of crayfish preds and you will wind up with a much lower population of crays and some very fat, healthy carp, pike, zander, barbel, and probably perch & chub who could certainly eat the smaller ones.

 

Shame it is too cool there for bullfrogs and black bass - both of which will eat crays and thrive.

 

And I agree they make wonderful eating. The food poisoning scare may have been because some idiots let them die and then tried to cook and eat them. They are like lobsters and crabs in that they go off quickly and are safest if thrown alive into boiling water or on a grill.

 

And BTW - the goo inside the head section of the crayfish is excellent eating too. Not just the tail.

 

[ 04. September 2002, 12:17 AM: Message edited by: Newt ]

[AberdeenAngus]

I have also eaten many Crayfish, and believe I have not been affecetd by any mental illness. I also believe that Tony Blair is a great guy, Roy Keane is much misunderstood, and I look forward to meeting Elvis next week when I visit the moon in a World War II Bomber

[chesters1]

it looks like someone else has my sense of humour ,no bull

[chevin]

Newt:

They are like lobsters and crabs in that they go off quickly and are safest if thrown alive into boiling water or on a grill.

While we have several different species of freshwater crays here - all of which are good eating - we also have a salt water cray which grows much larger. I get those by snorkelling and diving for them. I used to drop them in boiling water but one day a friend suggested I drowned them in freshwater first as the meat of the tail stays tenderer if you do that. I thought about it and it made sense, the tail is muscle and plunging it suddenly into boiling water makes it tense up. I tried it and sure enough the tail stayed tender and made much nicer eating. I remember that the little crays on the Ouse were always quite firm and I wonder if killing them gently might have the same effect on them. I don't know how you would do it, perhaps salt in some water or perhaps even use soda water. Certainly it would be worth a try. By the way, another cooking suggestion, try battering them and deep frying them! We dice the tails of our sea crays and cook them that way quite frequently - delicious.

[phil dean]

I understood that crays eat fish eggs, reducing the number of small fish therefor helping the fish which are already growing large from predating on the crays, to grow even larger, however the long term effects, following the explosion of signal crayfish numbers, are potentially disasterous for affected waters.

 

As to the EA not wanting people to catch crays, a licence to catch signal crayfish in traps is free and easily available from the EA as has already been said.

[Adz]

Another way to kill your cray's without any mess and still keeping the flesh nice and tender...

 

Put them live into cold water and heat the cold water to boiling. The cray's fall asleep long before the water is hot enough to harm them and the more gentle cooking of a 'relaxed', i.e. asleep, cray rather than a tense cray when chucked into boiling water alive makes for a much tastier meal ;-D

 

Tightlines,

[poledark]

I know that it is the "accepted" way to kill/cook Crayfish, but doesn't anyone else think it is absolutely barbaric? I can think of no worse way to die than to be dropped in boiling water, surely putting them in the fridge so they go to sleep is better?

 

Signal Crays are magnificent specimens, fearsome creatures, and the way they rattle their tails when you pick em up!!! hey you cant kill such a creature surely? I know I cant,

 

Den

[Adz]

Poledark,

 

Do you buy fish/shellfish etc. at supermarkets?

 

I'd much rather know where mine came from and how it's been handled mate - besides, signals are a non-native species on the increase, taking a few of them is good for the environment, not bad for it ;-)

 

Tightlines,

 

Adz.