Has anyone trapped crawfish? I was reading the tpwd website and all of the information I have found has implied it is legal, but I know the people on here have a better idea than my interpretation of what i read. Any suggestions on how or where to do it.

I don't know anything about the legalness of it in Texas. However, I did trap throughout college in Louisiana. This was in crawfish ponds and swamps. You can buy crawfish traps from various people. I think, I've even seen them at Academy a time or two. Basically, it's a wire basket with several funnels inward, thus funneling the crawfish. Bait with fresh shad.

Some people simply find a ditch with them and run a dip net through the mud and grass to catch them. I used to bait trotlines with them in Louisiana as well.

i have ordered two traps to start experimenting with, but I dont know how deep or the surface bottom that is the best. Should it be on sand, rocks, or grass lines?

In South Louisiana and parts of Southeast Texas they have crawfish ponds for commercial fishing. They look like a hay meadow that is flooded. If memory serves, the traps they used were about 2 ft tall and at least one quarter of the top of the trap was out of the water (water was 18 inches deep or less). Hope this helps but we always used a seine or a fine mesh net to get all of the crawfish that we needed to fish with.

Yep. Don't need deep water.

Yes, but this depends on the trap. Commercial traps are set up in about 10-18 inches of water and were first(sometimes still are) put in flooded rice fields(so grass is a good start). They have a white PVC opening on the top that sticks out the water so that it can be grabbed and emptied quickly, especially when running 100-200 traps every 5 hours. I remember empting a trap once on the sorting table sitting on my lap once and out flops a big cotton mouth! 2:00 a.m. with a bad head lamp and poisonous snake in your lap is an entirely different thread, but lets just say, I didn't mind giving up that job.

I don't know what type of trap you purchased, my guess is a sealed trap that can be opened in order to pull the trap out but still contains several funnels. If you are only running a few traps, this is the best way to go. The commericial traps will have escapies more than the sealed ones. They climb out the top.

The best place to put your traps is where the crawfish are. They may be by rocks, but most likely they will be in vegetation any were from 6" to 6'. Good luck!

I'm from Louisiana. If you need help eating them.... let me know . LOL (Heck, I will even cook em)

can crawfish sustain life in 18' of water? or do they need to surface every so often to breath?

how about the legal portion of it. Does a general fishing license cover it.

Now that's good question. I'm not sure.

When you get set up. Bacon will draw them like flies to a dead horse.

google is so cool... they have gills! learned me somethin new!

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99434.htm

A Science teacher I work with is currently having her students disect one. She told me the same thing. I care much more about how they taste than how they work, but still cool to know.

I teach 7th grade science and before they cut my budget in half, that was one of the things that we dissected. It is interesting how simple they really are. 12 and 13 year old jr high students think that and perch are the two most amazing things in the world.

problem I see here in Texas is the size. friend and i caught some by putting bacon on an old screen and waiting every 10 minutes to clean the screen. most were barely edible size. we let them purge in a bathtub of tap water for a couple hours (was single at that time . ) boiled em up til they turned bright red and ate em up! lots of work, but very good with ice cold cerveza! I want to trap some as well, but intentions are to drop them down to some brushpiles and open the hatch so they have a new home