VLVL(4)(d) Crawdad Fishing

[Don Corathers]

What to do with them:

Crawfish Etoufee

For four
1 1/2 c. crawfish tails (about 30)
1/2 c. crawfish fat
6 Tbs. salted butter
1/4 c. flour
1 c. chopped onions
1/2 c. chopped green pepper
1/2 c. chopped celery
1 Tbs. finely minced garlic
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper pods
1/16 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/3 c. thinly sliced green onion tops
1 Tbs. finely minced parsley
1 c. cold water
2 c. hot water, approximately

In a heavy 5 to 6 quart pot or kettle, melt the butter over low heat.
Gradually add the flour, stirring contantly. Cook over low heat until a
medium brown roux is formed, about 15 to 20 minutes. Quickly add the onions,
green pepper, celery, and garlic and continue to cook, stirring frequently,
until the vegetables are glazed and tender, about 20 minutes. Add the
crawfish tails, crawfish fat, salt, black pepper, cayenne, pepper pods,
cumin, lemon juice, green onion tops, and parsley, and mix well. Add the 1
cup cold water and bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, stirring
frequently, for 12 minutes, or until the crawfish tails are just
tender.Shortly before serving, heat the etoufee slowly over low heat and
gradually add 1 to 2 cups hot water to provide the gravy. Serve over boiled
rice.

The Pleasures of Seafood
Rima and Richard Collin


----- Original Message -----
From: "Vincent A. Maeder" <vmaeder at cyhc-law.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 10:59 AM
Subject: VLVL(4)(d) Crawdad Fishing


> "He was heading for a little farm on the creek road, where he
> had a sideline in crawfish..." (VL, Ch. 4, p. 35)  Any of various
> freshwater crustaceans of the genera Cambarus and Astacus, resembling a
> lobster but considerably smaller. Also called crawdad, mudbug.  Found in
> ponds and streams throughout the world (except Africa) usually brownish
> green in color.  They are scavengers growing up to 6 inches in length.
> According to Dale Sheckler, they's good eatin', "Unlike muddy Louisiana
> crawdads, California mountain crayfish were as close to lobster as I'd
> ever experienced. I was hooked."
> http://www.saintbrendan.com/cdnaug/mtn_spot.html
> http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/discuss/craw.htm
>
> "Morning, the biggest, splashing down the middle of the creek,
> with the others carrying jars and sacks of twenty-penny nails, and
> fastening a piece of bacon to the bottom of every knee-deep pool they
> came to.  By the time they got back to where they'd started, there'd be
> frantic invasions of crawdads, all milling around unable to get the
> bacon loose.  Procedure then was to bring out a minnow bag on a stick,
> hit the crawdad on the nose with a stick, and catch it, as it jumped, in
> the bag.  Sometimes the kids would even allow their parents to come
> along and help out." (VL, Ch. 4, pp. 35-36)  Although I cannot find the
> procedure outlined, several are described by Mr. North.
> http://www.idfishnhunt.com/crawfish.htm
>
> ------
>
> If you have access to a passel of enthusiastic kids, you might sic them
> onto the job of both catching and cleaning a mess of supper crawfish.
> (Trouble is, they'll also eat most of the catch and then whine for
> more.)
>
> Where do you find crawfish in Idaho?
> Pretty much from one end of the state to the other in reservoirs,
> rivers, ponds, irrigation canals, and tiny creeks - in a word anywhere
> there's water of a relatively warm temperature. (We catch ours in
> Brownlee Reservoir.) Beyond this, the key word is rocks.
>
> Idaho crawfish are vulnerable to all sorts of predators unless they take
> daytime shelter under rocks, sunken logs, or aquatic weeds. Smaller
> rubble-rock provides more hiding crevices than do large boulders. In my
> wading and skin-diving experience, crawfish seem to frequent shallower
> waters up to six feet or so deep, but some anglers catch literally
> hundreds of these bottom-grubbing crustaceans in deep-water traps.
>
> As barefoot kids, most of us have enjoyed the experience of wading lake
> shallows or small creeks while turning over rocks to catch the scary
> claw-waving "mudbugs" lurking beneath. Most of us, too, have discovered
> those claws are just as dangerous as they look. Let a big one get hold
> of your finger and he'll draw blood, not to mention considerable terror
> while you try to pry or sling him loose. If you want to hand-grab
> crawfish, approach slowly from behind and then quickly grab the 'dad
> with finger and thumb just behind the claws, about where their "ribs"
> should be - and hang tight!. This approach is for the youthful and
> devoted, however, since most crawdads will back-scull beyond reach just
> before you make your grab.
>
> Some advantage in hand-grabbing crawdads can be gained by hunting them
> at night. Like their saltwater relatives, light-sensitive crawfish are
> mainly nocturnal bottom scavengers which abandon their lairs mostly in
> darkness. They also move into lakeshore shallows at night where they can
> be seen and approached with a flashlight. As in nocturnal frog hunting,
> crawfish are mildly "hypnotized" by a strong light beam and can be
> grabbed with greater ease. Just don't move your hand fast in nearby
> water, since those long, ever-waving antennae are as sensitive as they
> look.
>
> Day or night, a more effective way of gathering crawfish is to toss out
> a piece of fish or other meat on a string, leave it a while, then slowly
> draw it to the surface. One to several crawdads will usually be clinging
> to the bait and are easily caught by slipping a long-handled net under
> them. With this method you can "pot-shot" individual crawfish you've
> spotted as effectively as you can "fish blind" in deeper water.
>
> Commercial crawfishermen usually employ traps of one kind or another.
> You can either make or buy crawdad traps, and you'll need several if you
> want to gather lots of mudbugs in a hurry. One trap form is a cylinder
> or cube of ¼" wire mesh with a screen "funnel" leading into the
> interior, which is baited with a fish head or other meat scrap. As long
> as the crawfish can't get at the food directly through the screen, he
> keeps poking around till he finds the funnel, crawls through, and then
> can't find his way out again. Such traps are simply lowered into deep
> water, buoy-marked, and picked up after an hour or so.
>
> Another crawdad trap is a small version of the popular "crab rings" used
> in the ocean. This trap consists of a wire mesh or cloth net strung on a
> rigid square or circular metal frame a foot or two across. Folding or
> collapsing sides a few inches high are tied to a line which leads to the
> surface. The trap is baited in its center, lowered to the bottom,
> buoy-marked, and retrieved later by the attached line. Since crab-ring
> traps aren't enclosed as are funnel traps, it's important to haul up
> pretty fast so crawdads won't have time to crawl or swim over the sides.
> Euell Gibbons, the late wildfoods forager extraordinaire, agrees
> freshwater crawfish are an unsurpassed inland delicacy. He caught
> hundreds of mudbugs for his own table wherever he traveled and for a
> time was a commercial crawfisher here in the Northwest. He used about a
> dozen of the crab-ring traps described above and regularly took 20 to 50
> crawdads per haul. He claims 1000 crawfish per day wasn't uncommon, and
> his commercial success was limited only by a lack of market for his tiny
> delicacies.
>
> (SEE: Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons)
>
> Whatever method you use to catch crawfish in sufficient numbers to eat,
> you still have the task of cleaning them. Basically, all the meat is in
> the tail. You can quickly twist the tail off upon catching the crawdad
> and feed the forward half to enthusiastic fish. (This saves you worrying
> about "escapees" or getting pinched by a bucket full of bristling
> claws.) Or, you can bring your entire catch home alive and dispatch them
> by brief submersion in boiling water, at which time you still must twist
> the tail portion free. It may or may not be more cruel, but I prefer the
> former method.
>
> http://www.idfishnhunt.com/crawfish.htm
>
>