Pass Lake crayfish

Roper

Roper

Idiot Savant, still
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My understanding is that there are crayfish in Pass. So it has piqued my interest to figure out how to fish for them. I went on WDFW website and didn’t get a whole lot of information. None of my friends, to my knowledge, have ever fished for crayfish. So I can’t tap them for information. So I’m reaching out to the forum to find out if there are any folks that actively fish for crayfish. I’m interested in what the gear and set up might look like. I think it would be a fun experiment to drop a trap, go fish for a while and then come back and see what there is. And if there are crayfish in the trap, take them home, boil them up and eat them.

So if any of you out there are in the know, please share…
 
Roper said:
My understanding is that there are crayfish in Pass. So it has piqued my interest to figure out how to fish for them. I went on WDFW website and didn’t get a whole lot of information. None of my friends, to my knowledge, have ever fished for crayfish. So I can’t tap them for information. So I’m reaching out to the forum to find out if there are any folks that actively fish for crayfish. I’m interested in what the gear and set up might look like. I think it would be a fun experiment to drop a trap, go fish for a while and then come back and see what there is. And if there are crayfish in the trap, take them home, boil them up and eat them.

So if any of you out there are in the know, please share…
Click to expand...
I used to fish for them as a kid. I knew a couple of ponds that were absolutely full of them. My main method was a chicken drumstuck on a string with a heavy nut to sink it. The crawfish would grab on and not let go until I knocked them off into a bucket.

But a box trap or minnnow trap baited with chicken would work great for 'set it and forget it.' I used one like this (on sale for $11!), but I had to enlarge the opening on mine because it was designed for minnows:

www.sportsmans.com

Danielson Crawfish Trap

Danielson Crawfish Trap - Cone shaped inward entrances funnel crayfish into the trap and by design makes escape difficult.
www.sportsmans.com www.sportsmans.com
 
Zak said:
I used to fish for them as a kid. I knew a couple of ponds that were absolutely full of them. My main method was a chicken drumstuck on a string with a heavy nut to sink it. The crawfish would grab on and not let go until I knocked them off into a bucket.

But a box trap or minnnow trap baited with chicken would work great for 'set it and forget it.' I used one like this (on sale for $11!), but I had to enlarge the opening on mine because it was designed for minnows:

www.sportsmans.com

Danielson Crawfish Trap

Danielson Crawfish Trap - Cone shaped inward entrances funnel crayfish into the trap and by design makes escape difficult.
www.sportsmans.com www.sportsmans.com
Click to expand...
Thanks, Zak… I was going to hit sportsman’s later today. I think there might be crayfish in Silver Lake, a lot closer than Pass. I could set traps and leave them overnight as I hear they are active night feeders.
 
If you can find one of their holes, drop a piece of raw bacon on a string in there and wait for it to get tight, pull it up slowly. When I was a kid, we'd spend a couple of weeks at Lake DeGray in Arkansas every summer. There was a seam in the boat ramp with about a 2 inch gap between concrete pieces. When the water was up above that seam they would literally stack on top of each other in the gap. Bacon on a string would fill a bucket in no time. From there they went onto the trot line as live bait.
 
Those minnow traps are great and they work. I've used canned tuna with some holes punched in either side to great success.

When I was a kid we had a pond filled with crayfish. Wed trap them all summer and fill ziploc bags of tail meat in the freezer for use as shrimp replacement.

They get BIG if given the chance. I remember pulling the trap with my dad one day and him realizing that if the crayfish were any bigger than the ones in the pot they wouldn't be able to get in the hole.

He pulled out the wire snips and opened the hole just a bit bigger and reset it. The next day, it held the 4 biggest crayfish I've ever seen. 10" long with claws the length of my thumb. Absolute units. We caught a couple more of them that year and never again.

I definitely suggest overnighting your pots. You're also going to catch bluegill and any other small fishes that live there, which is also fun!
 
Used to take the kids out for crawdads where we used rings (24" diameter) baited with a fish carcass, usually used a ring apiece and would rotate around pulling each ring very 20 minutes or so - great action for the kids. We fished a lake without bass and did well. If bass are present, then the night fishing was better. At night I would use some sort of pot/trap and leave them soaking for several hours. If you use tuna buy the cans where the tuna is soaked in oil, provides a better scent trail.

Most western lakes have "dads" though as mentioned on bass lakes you are sharing the bounty with them.

Curt
 
I remember trapping crawdads when I was a kid. As I remember, seems like wherever we'd put the traps, we'd catch a bunch of them. 'Twas lots of fun. :) :) :)
 
Roper said:
My understanding is that there are crayfish in Pass. So it has piqued my interest to figure out how to fish for them. I went on WDFW website and didn’t get a whole lot of information. None of my friends, to my knowledge, have ever fished for crayfish. So I can’t tap them for information. So I’m reaching out to the forum to find out if there are any folks that actively fish for crayfish. I’m interested in what the gear and set up might look like. I think it would be a fun experiment to drop a trap, go fish for a while and then come back and see what there is. And if there are crayfish in the trap, take them home, boil them up and eat them.

So if any of you out there are in the know, please share…
Click to expand...
If you do drop your traps in Pass, lemme know what colors you’re getting. My copy cat jiggy craw is hit & miss so far 👍
 
Most western WA lakes and rivers have crawdads the upper Columbia is one of my favorite places. I usually use 3 traps and put a couple of walleye minus the fillets in my pots leave overnight and pull them
for our lunch. I have used the cylinder type traps and they do need to be opened up on both ends but prefer the ones made by Willapa they are rectangular I put a few pieces of rebar on the bottom so they stay where you put them, I believe there is a few commercial crawdaders that work the lake also......
 
A few years ago I saw a guy at Pass that had Crawdad traps near the shore next to the road. He was absolutely scoring heavy. I also have talked with a Crab fisherman that was commercially fishing for them in Lake Whatcom. I did some research, and it seems as if these crawfish are a highly sought after seafood item in the asian markets around Seattle. I've eaten the typical crawfish from Louisiana, but apparently the Crawfish that are around here are considered superior. IMHO this might be a relatively untapped resource of top notch seafood, for us here, that may have been overlooked over the years.
 
We took the Mayfly kids to Rattlesnake Lake once in August, and after wading in the shallows for 10 minutes, they all abandoned their fly rods to chase the craws all around their feet. I think every one of them had to discover independently that crayfish pinch 😁
They had a ball!
20180814_102952(1).jpg
 
In Southern California big bass hunters often buy crawdads for bait. "Stitching a dad", is an art, that can be very deadly for lunker Bass.
M-D I have also tied some crawdad "flies", to use at Pass ( and Crab Creek). There is little doubt that those big Brown trout in Pass Lake enjoy dining on these critters.
 
Northern said:
We took the Mayfly kids to Rattlesnake Lake once in August, and after wading in the shallows for 10 minutes, they all abandoned their fly rods to chase the craws all around their feet. I think every one of them had to discover independently that crayfish pinch 😁
They had a ball!
View attachment 179851
Click to expand...
WOW............. that looks like a big-un....
 
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