As a side note, it's good to see you back Amarok. We missed you. Tight lines bro.
We use to net them in the Grand River in Lansing at night. We had head lamps to light up the river at night when we netted them. We would chase them by flipping over smaller rocks and then with large rectangular aquarium nets, chase them with one net in front of them and as they propelled themselves backward through the water, the only direction that can go is backwards, and chase them into the other aquarium net behind them. Easy to catch at night.
The ones we were netting were more in the 2 to 3 inch size and unlike the picture of the large one you showed, were a dark brown color. I suspect that the ones you are required by law to kill, are a different subset of the crayfish species. There are many. The ones we were netting rarely reached 5 inches.
In the summer months when their growth is the largest of the year for them, they will shed their shell, called molting. This occurs during full moons in the summer months. The new shell takes a few days to harden up, but in the interim, they were perfect size and tender. We used them for targeting perch in the Great Lakes. Lake Michigan in particular. With 6 lb main line with an egg sinker on the main line, we tied this to a two way swivel. The leader was around 6 foot long and tied with two pound test and a small hook. The soft shelled crawdads were hooked through the tail and a long cast was made with the presentation. We would slowly pull this in with occasional pauses in the retrieve. Jumbo perch, many in the 16 inch class.
In lieu of not having some we freshly netted the night before, we would buy frozen ones at the bait store. When anchored and fishing on the bottom over the side of the boat with a bell sinker on the bottom and two dropper snelled leaders attached to the main line a foot and another at two feet up from the bell sinker, many doubles were caught. Fishing this presentation over the side of the boat was good for huge numbers as well. But some of our largest fish any given trip was done making the long casts and slow retrieve with the freshly molted crayfish.
Here is a pic of my long noodle rod bent over and when it bent like was the case in the pic, it usually meant that both snelled leaders had a fish on.
We would sometimes set the hook on the first bite and then wait 5 to 10 seconds for a fish to hit the 2nd snelled leader. Wham bam, double. Our
dropper rigs snelled leaders were baited with minnows and mayfly larva called wigglers. It was a rare day not to catch our limit.
When the rod bent like this, it usually meant a double was on.
Perch, Bluegills and Walleyes are my favorite for the table in the same order. Perch are my #1.
Switching gears, the 7th to the 10th of April is when the walleye show up from the east end of Lake Erie. They number in the millions.
A very easy bite with a drifting and jigging presentation with minnows. We've caught some extremely large ones over the years, and
personal best was close to 14 1/2 lbs. and 34 inches long. Released to do her thing spawning.
Trenton channel of the Detroit River. Just upstream from Lake Erie. Easy limit of eyes. We try to throw back any over 5 lbs as the smaller ones
taste much better. After a limit of walleyes, we would then explore to cuts/channels on the lower end of Grosse Isle. The perch also show
up in huge numbers there to do their spring spawn. The perch always show up a week or to earlier than the walleye, but catching limits
of both species was a treat when it came to good eating fish.
This pic was from my early early years fishing the lower Detroit river before we started our catch and release the
larger ones and keeping those that were under 5 lbs. One of these weighed 12 3/4 lbs and the other weighed 12 1/4 lbs.
I feel guilty looking at this pic, as both fish were females and filled with eggs. Since the early 90s, we now let these big ones
go to do their spring spawn.
that's a big ass crawdad...or looks like one, we used to catch crawdads and water snakes under the rocks in the river when I was kid...nice print too! Hopefully you still had a good day!
After nearly a month of closed lakes and frozen river it's just wonderful to be out. It always starts slow while the fish get active and I get used to long rods and casting again. I expect to have at least a couple dinos before June, if history is a guide.
