Hey guys, I love the channel and love the products! Just had a suggestion for your store: trap tags. The custom metal tags available on Amazon aren't very good, and I was looking for some since here in CO we must label our traps with our license/phone number etc. If you had them I would buy them from you in a heartbeat! Ordering 3 traps from you guys next week, thanks for inspiring me to chase after a new species! All the best to ya
Thanks for another awesome video! This is what keeps me motivated! I'm amazed by the number of crayfish that live in this watershed! Thanks again Crayster Team!
Good job Mike and Ben. Floor to floor of good sized Signal Crayfish. Any other Crayfish species or spotted? Good to see Ben doing stewardship as a Sportsman to pick up man made items thrown in the river.
Depending on the location, there are currently 3 invasive species of crayfish in addition to the native signal crafish. Red swamp crayfish. Ringed crayfish (specifically northern ringed crayfish). Rusty crayfish. The mudbugs spread quickly and eat live vegetation causing a certain amount of environmental damage as well as reducing native cray populations. Inferior in flavor to native crays. Ringed crayfish breed quickly and displace a portion of native stock. Even less tasty than mudbugs. Rusty crayfish have the ability to interbreed with other species and can entirely replace a native population. Think along the lines of "Africanized bees". Rusty crayfish devastate the natural shoreline vegetation that so many native juvenile rely on for cover. So, they can wipe out local fish populations as well as native crayfish. I've not eaten these. According to both Oregon and Washington states fisheries biologists the rusty crayfish are not currently interbreeding with signal crayfish. Rusty crayfish may be worth harvesting because, like signal crayfish, the males have large chelae (claws). . The lake where this video was recorded is not infested with other species.
Many many hours as a young man snorkeling in Lake Tahoe for huge crayfish. No mud bugs there. Crystal cold water at 6200+ elevation. Two hours brought a huge bag of tails and claws; yes, a good share of bugs had claws big enough to cook and eat the meat within.
I go in the Truckee river every day in the summer after work catching fatties while tripping on mushrooms. Well flip over every damn rock in the river finding them hahaha, never been crawfishing in Tahoe though. Is pretty much anywhere good to go?
@@notarobott8641 I would think any area that the bottom has plenty of large rocks/boulders would be good. My experiences were all in the south-east corner of the lake. I would swim in 10-15 ft. of water and find a bug every so often. Take off the tail and claws (if large); crush the body and drop it. At the end of a quarter mile or so I'd turn around and swim back. The bottom was alive with crawfish. They all came out to feed on the remains.
There is obviously no otters in this lack. We have big signal crayfish here in Washington where I am but most of our lakes have freshwater otters eating them all up
I worked with a guy who did a.night dive in the Lake of the Ozarks off the end of a dock. There was a trap down but they were hand grabbing the crayfish and stuffing them into the trap as a way to hold them. He made it in sound like they were stacked up outside the trap just like some of your GoPro footage.
Although they do burrow into mud banks on stream sides these are not mud bugs. These are signal crayfish. Basic answer is that the ones you're seeing are too big for most native fish. Also too big for the bass shown. In their native Pacific Northwest environments, the various species of fish that prey on crawdads typically only eat the smaller crayfish and occasionally get a big one when it's soft shelled. Lakes have a better chance of producing large bugs, than do streams. Crayfish populations in water ways with introduced species like burbot and smallmouth can end up decimated within a few years- less than 10 yrs, as soon as 3 years. I've used tails for bait while trout fishing. If the tails are too large or have too much shell, the fish won't strike. Here in the PNW,, for example, the introduced smallmouth bass won't strike when you use the head/thorax portion of a big for bait. Back east they'll slam a crawdad head. I imagine that flathead, blues, and channels also eat crawdads and walleye. . An important note is that these guys typically trap in lakes where the crayfish were introduced and did not suffer the heavy predation that is typical in their native streams and lakes. Therefore you are seeing larger than normal specimens featured in these videos. There a handful of coastal rivers that produce 5" long bugs. The normal size for an adult signal crayfish is 3.5 to 4 inches. Mudbugs, aka red swamp crayfish, aka Louisiana crayfish, grow to adult size in one or two years. Signal crayfish take an average of 5 to 7 years to reach full size. They can reach full size in 3 years, or could take as many as 12 years. They are too cannibalistic to successfully aquafarm. I know of only one species of cray in North America naturally that grows larger than signal crayfish. It is only found in a small watershed in Tennesee.
Most sreams where I trap it's pointless to leave a trap down for more than an hour. The first to arrive have eaten their fill and crawl back out of the trap. On good days the trap will be entirely full within 45 minutes and no more can go in. I have no experience trapping in lakes. Maybe it's conducive to leave them down longer In a lake. . I can also catch a bucket full from the shore using a weighted safety pin. . My secret weapon is their favorite food. Ever seen an entire 2lb fish including the skull get consumed in 35 minutes? I have. You can too if you can discover which fresh fish is their favorite. . It's not goldfish. No, I'm not a monster. I occasionally catch gigantic invasive comet goldfish in the same ponds that have trophy largemouth. We're talking up to 5lb goldfish. The two goldfish that I used for bait each contained over 10,000 eggs apiece. My home state's laws instruct anglers not to release them, but to kill them instead. . I'm not listing my secret bait. However, I will share results of observed preferences for freshwater fish in order of most attractive to least attractive. Everything listed was caught legally and in accordance with all state and local laws. #1) it's a secret. #2) bluegill, pumpkin seed, redear/shell cracker, orange belly, etc. (not crappie) #3) smallmouth bass & hybrid bluegill #4) black crappie. #5) warmouth. #6) green sunfish. #7) char. #8) redband-rainbow and coastal cutthroat. #9) sculpin. #10) fluvial steelhead/rainbow trout. #11) largemouth bass. #12) hatchery rainbow trout. #13) white crappie. #14) spawning atlantic shad. #15) spawning coho. #16) spawning steelhead. #17) spawning chinook. #18) yellow perch. #19) comet goldfish. #20) suckerfish. #21) carp. #22) yellow bullhead. #23) brown bullhead. . If anyone has used burbot (sometimes called fresh water lingcod) please comment.
This is the Crayster trap in this episode! www.procrayster.com/product/snake-river-cylinder-trap/
Hey guys, I love the channel and love the products! Just had a suggestion for your store: trap tags. The custom metal tags available on Amazon aren't very good, and I was looking for some since here in CO we must label our traps with our license/phone number etc. If you had them I would buy them from you in a heartbeat! Ordering 3 traps from you guys next week, thanks for inspiring me to chase after a new species! All the best to ya
Great video!! Thank you Ben for clueing me in on the video!! I’m looking forward to going out and getting me some crawfish !!
Wow 😃. Excellent video Mike and Ben 👍👍👍. Luv how Ben, only selected top prime Crayfish, ie mini Lobster 🦞 👍👍
Thanks for another awesome video! This is what keeps me motivated! I'm amazed by the number of crayfish that live in this watershed! Thanks again Crayster Team!
Which watershed is that? I didn't hear it named.
Cool video! Those crawfish are HUGE!!!!!
Lobsters for sure!
That looks awesome. Id love to try that one day
Good job Mike and Ben. Floor to floor of good sized Signal Crayfish.
Any other Crayfish species or spotted?
Good to see Ben doing stewardship as a Sportsman to pick up man made items thrown in the river.
Depending on the location, there are currently 3 invasive species of crayfish in addition to the native signal crafish. Red swamp crayfish. Ringed crayfish (specifically northern ringed crayfish). Rusty crayfish. The mudbugs spread quickly and eat live vegetation causing a certain amount of environmental damage as well as reducing native cray populations. Inferior in flavor to native crays. Ringed crayfish breed quickly and displace a portion of native stock. Even less tasty than mudbugs. Rusty crayfish have the ability to interbreed with other species and can entirely replace a native population. Think along the lines of "Africanized bees". Rusty crayfish devastate the natural shoreline vegetation that so many native juvenile rely on for cover. So, they can wipe out local fish populations as well as native crayfish. I've not eaten these. According to both Oregon and Washington states fisheries biologists the rusty crayfish are not currently interbreeding with signal crayfish. Rusty crayfish may be worth harvesting because, like signal crayfish, the males have large chelae (claws).
.
The lake where this video was recorded is not infested with other species.
Many many hours as a young man snorkeling in Lake Tahoe for huge crayfish. No mud bugs there. Crystal cold water at 6200+ elevation. Two hours brought a huge bag of tails and claws; yes, a good share of bugs had claws big enough to cook and eat the meat within.
I go in the Truckee river every day in the summer after work catching fatties while tripping on mushrooms. Well flip over every damn rock in the river finding them hahaha, never been crawfishing in Tahoe though. Is pretty much anywhere good to go?
@@notarobott8641 I would think any area that the bottom has plenty of large rocks/boulders would be good. My experiences were all in the south-east corner of the lake. I would swim in 10-15 ft. of water and find a bug every so often. Take off the tail and claws (if large); crush the body and drop it. At the end of a quarter mile or so I'd turn around and swim back. The bottom was alive with crawfish. They all came out to feed on the remains.
There is obviously no otters in this lack. We have big signal crayfish here in Washington where I am but most of our lakes have freshwater otters eating them all up
Fantastic video keep them coming please!!
Btw this is at snake river in idaho ur welcome😂❤
I worked with a guy who did a.night dive in the Lake of the Ozarks off the end of a dock. There was a trap down but they were hand grabbing the crayfish and stuffing them into the trap as a way to hold them. He made it in sound like they were stacked up outside the trap just like some of your GoPro footage.
Yeah, if you put in good bait they come from everywhere trying to get in for sure.
@@crayster3926 That's obvious from this footage and previous GoPro footage with trap mounted cameras.
Great work and footage Mike and Ben!!!!! The amount under that water is insane!!!! 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞
Thanks, Ben did all of the work. We actually had a blast making this together. Thanks for joining us!
nice big signal crayfish
Are ya'll in eastern WA?
No, southeast Idaho
i want to do a few crawfish boils , any tips on starting to trap them
Watch the "Nine Crawfishing Hacks" on this channel. It will tell you every thing you need to know. Good luck!
How are those mud bugs not getting eaten by fish?
They have hard shells, lol.
Although they do burrow into mud banks on stream sides these are not mud bugs. These are signal crayfish. Basic answer is that the ones you're seeing are too big for most native fish. Also too big for the bass shown. In their native Pacific Northwest environments, the various species of fish that prey on crawdads typically only eat the smaller crayfish and occasionally get a big one when it's soft shelled. Lakes have a better chance of producing large bugs, than do streams. Crayfish populations in water ways with introduced species like burbot and smallmouth can end up decimated within a few years- less than 10 yrs, as soon as 3 years. I've used tails for bait while trout fishing. If the tails are too large or have too much shell, the fish won't strike. Here in the PNW,, for example, the introduced smallmouth bass won't strike when you use the head/thorax portion of a big for bait. Back east they'll slam a crawdad head. I imagine that flathead, blues, and channels also eat crawdads and walleye.
.
An important note is that these guys typically trap in lakes where the crayfish were introduced and did not suffer the heavy predation that is typical in their native streams and lakes. Therefore you are seeing larger than normal specimens featured in these videos. There a handful of coastal rivers that produce 5" long bugs. The normal size for an adult signal crayfish is 3.5 to 4 inches. Mudbugs, aka red swamp crayfish, aka Louisiana crayfish, grow to adult size in one or two years. Signal crayfish take an average of 5 to 7 years to reach full size. They can reach full size in 3 years, or could take as many as 12 years. They are too cannibalistic to successfully aquafarm. I know of only one species of cray in North America naturally that grows larger than signal crayfish. It is only found in a small watershed in Tennesee.
What state are you guys in?
We are in Idaho Falls, Idaho
Most sreams where I trap it's pointless to leave a trap down for more than an hour. The first to arrive have eaten their fill and crawl back out of the trap. On good days the trap will be entirely full within 45 minutes and no more can go in. I have no experience trapping in lakes. Maybe it's conducive to leave them down longer In a lake.
.
I can also catch a bucket full from the shore using a weighted safety pin.
.
My secret weapon is their favorite food. Ever seen an entire 2lb fish including the skull get consumed in 35 minutes? I have. You can too if you can discover which fresh fish is their favorite.
.
It's not goldfish. No, I'm not a monster. I occasionally catch gigantic invasive comet goldfish in the same ponds that have trophy largemouth. We're talking up to 5lb goldfish. The two goldfish that I used for bait each contained over 10,000 eggs apiece. My home state's laws instruct anglers not to release them, but to kill them instead.
.
I'm not listing my secret bait. However, I will share results of observed preferences for freshwater fish in order of most attractive to least attractive. Everything listed was caught legally and in accordance with all state and local laws.
#1) it's a secret. #2) bluegill, pumpkin seed, redear/shell cracker, orange belly, etc. (not crappie) #3) smallmouth bass & hybrid bluegill #4) black crappie. #5) warmouth. #6) green sunfish. #7) char. #8) redband-rainbow and coastal cutthroat. #9) sculpin. #10) fluvial steelhead/rainbow trout. #11) largemouth bass. #12) hatchery rainbow trout. #13) white crappie. #14) spawning atlantic shad. #15) spawning coho. #16) spawning steelhead. #17) spawning chinook. #18) yellow perch. #19) comet goldfish. #20) suckerfish. #21) carp. #22) yellow bullhead. #23) brown bullhead.
.
If anyone has used burbot (sometimes called fresh water lingcod) please comment.
Thanks for adding content!
Where was this at?
This is in Idaho on the Snake River area.
@@crayster3926 Owyhee or Brownlee?
😎💜👍
I dont believe you threw them all back!
Fantastic video! Crazy stuff ! Can’t believe how many where down there! 🦞🦞👍
It is one great resource few people know about. It is super cool.