Cutthroats, rainbows and cryfish, oh my!!!

[caddisguy]

Key is for crayfish, August - October are the magic months... they're big, active and plentiful.

Lots of lakes are infested... jones, kawkawa, stave, pitt, parts of harrison, silver lake... etc. Some places I wouldn't want to eat them from like the fraser and salmon river... and some places I left out because they are my crawdad honey holes ;-P

I have a lake in mind that is super clear and good for snorkeling the shallows for crayfish. We're going to make some underwater crayfish trapping vids, probably in August that will make even south GA jealous.

One thing cool thing I learned over the years is that you can watch a crayfish walk for an hour and when you spook it, it does the tail-flick thing to retreat in the exact path that it came from (in seconds instead of an hour) ... experimented a little with having a net where it came from, 10 meters away and having someone else spook it. It's one thing to put a net a foot behind it and spook it into the net, but its fun to get someone else to spook it and have it make several dashes/turns and still end up in the net. Seems random but its not. They are like little robots and their instinct is to "rewind".

[caddisguy]

[caddisguy]

[BRvalley]

that's awesome, decent size

I've probably caught well over a thousand crayfish for fishing bait back in ON, we've ate them camping as teens a few times and turned out alright...but they were pretty good down south

any chance you are aware of any lakes in the PG area to catch them?

[caddisguy]

Not sure about BC. I think they (signal crayfish) become more scarce the further you get from the coast. Though if I recall correctly the fishing synopsis specifies a quota for them in Region 5 which is getting pretty far from the coast. I imagine lakes in Reg 3 near the Thompson would have them too. If anyone knows lakes in PG or other non-coastal areas that would be great info.

[Wentrot]

This is something thats been on my mind for ages, thanks for lighting the fire under my arse, gonna try finding somewhere close to mission to catch em!

[ruger#1]

Dewdney slough. Or any slough that has large rocks. The seals sure clean them up on the Dewdney.

[Wentrot]

Dewdney slough. Or any slough that has large rocks. The seals sure clean them up on the Dewdney.

Didn't even think of the dewdney. Im only 30 seconds away

[caddisguy]

Tons around Mission. Just make sure you get them from clean sources... you don't want to eat them out of the fraser or some stagnant slough with farm run-off since they are resident and eat vegetation and dead things. You don't want to grow a chemical induced third nipple! Harrison lake/river, pitt lake / river, kawkawa are all pretty decent. Salmon river in Langley has monsters you can catch for fun but you dont want to be eating them.

[Big Lew]

One of the better places for them where I've seen large ones is in
Widgeon Creek. Can't get much cleaner then there. Others know
of that place though as I have seen lines holding traps set in the
water on several occasions when canoeing in that creek. Have
caught good ones in Stave River below the dam as others have
mentioned, especially in the 'old river bed' on the east side.