Crayfish Wars – Why the Americans are Winning

This is a dedicated thread for discussing article: Crayfish Wars – Why the Americans are Winning

I've never really understood why the EA doesn't encourage anglers to buy a crayfish trap and bung it in at the start of every session - signal crays are really nice to eat.

I know there's a licence you should get, but surely the EA knows which rivers are now completely full of signal crays (such as the Beds. Ouse) and could make licences freely available, together with an ID chart so nobody inadvertently boils a native cray.

Any EA bods reading this?

Can't we get the EEs to eat them ?
Krakov Crays anyone ? :w

Absolutely brilliant idea, Steve. They'd be fantastic at it, and wouldn't mind spending hours peeling the bloody things.

Crayfish bars? Oh yes, washed down with some Polish vodka.

MarkTheSpark said:

I know there's a licence you should get, but surely the EA knows which rivers are now completely full of signal crays (such as the Beds. Ouse) and could make licences freely available

Click to expand...

But they are freely available, you only have to apply for one and they send you tags to put on the trap. We fought hard last year against the EA who wanted to put a charge of £40 on up to ten traps, but the protests defeated the proposal and they're still free. The trap has to conform to certain sizes to stop otters (I never said that) and voles from getting in and dying, but that's about it.

Sadly, most 'safe' traps that are recommended don't catch the tiny ones, they slip through the plastic mesh, but there are net ones that conform and they should trap the little ones. Not that the little ones are any good to you, but you tread on them and leave them to dry out (don't kick them back in) so kills any eggs they might be carrying. If you just remove the big ones, the little ones grow up a lot quicker to fill the gap.

Incidentally, someone put a crayfish in with a Chinese mitten crab and the crab literally ripped the cray apart and ate it. However, we don't want an infestation of Chinese mitten crabs either.