Cutthroats, rainbows and cryfish, oh my!!!

[caddisguy]

We got our spring bear early this year (close range on headcam too... footage will come out sometime in the near future) and though my fiancee still has a tag, our freezers are pretty full and we're pretty hunted out (hiking, ticks, butchering bear until 1am--my first time and everything went wrong--with other bears and critters too close for comfort, carrying meat, cutting, vacuum packing, etc) so last weekend we decided to just relax 100% and do a little fishing/crayfishing at a local lake. It's a bit early for crayfish at said lake, so we only got a couple, but still fun! We kept some trout for a couple meals. Sitting at home today and going through some raw video--seems we have many many hours of raw video I need to catch up on--and last weekends fishing trip seemed the easiest to edit, so here it is.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_afAY_au9LQ

[Wrj]

Nice work! Didnt know people ate crawfish...might have to try some!

[300H&H]

Nice work! Didnt know people ate crawfish...might have to try some!

If the water is clean then they taste great, just like scampi.

[caddisguy]

I started several years ago... once or twice a year we'll get our traps down somewhere and they fill up... we take the biggest ones to make up our limit and have a feast. Garlic butter and a little lemon!! :)

Snorkeling for them is fun too. I know a few good lakes with crayfish that are really clear, so we'll be doing some underwater video, probably sometime between mid July and mid September. I find August to October are the magic months. I imagine the lakes and creeks on the Island are full of them too, so you shouldn't need to venture too far!

[Sofa King]

oh the fish hunter.
that's the unit my dad had rigged right out.
he made custom seats and mounts and the whole works, it was a great little fish-catcher.

[caddisguy]

oh the fish hunter.
that's the unit my dad had rigged right out.
he made custom seats and mounts and the whole works, it was a great little fish-catcher.

We've definitely got some great use out of it. I've had it for about 8 years. It's been out on hundreds of voyages around the LML, Merritt, Kamloops and the south cariboo. Other than getting splashed a little, it has no problem when big lakes like Harrison or Lac la Hache kick up or windy lakes like Tunkwa, Helena, etc... though if wind is really bad we often wait it out since fighting the wind does wear down the batteries.

Popped the floorboard my first time out by sitting on some pliers, but it patched up nicely, and thus she is named "patches". Had some of the plastic clamps for the motor mount crack but my friend was able to 3D-print me new ones. I don't know how the vinyl is still holding up... I stay pretty close to shore when lakes are freezing though. I know we'll end up going for a little bit of a swim one day. I have a spare boat here still in the box when this one packs it in.

I love that everything (boat, paddles, life jacket, pump, anchors, etc) pack up into one roughneck rubbermaid container. Carrying it into lakes isn't too bad either if you leave the batteries behind.

[Sofa King]

dad made a solid plywood floor that popped in, it really made it so much better.

[caddisguy]

dad made a solid plywood floor that popped in, it really made it so much better.

I bought the floorboard from sevylor and used it for the first year or two because I was worried that sand/pebbles under boots, batteries, etc. would pop it pretty quick. Then my brother ended up getting a fishhunter rig and I saw how he'd beat the crap out of (never cleaning the rocks out, dragging it around on gravel) ... his rationale was... "How much extra time do you spend packing around and installing the floorboard each trip?" ... "how much time do you spend cleaning the rocks/dirt doat, drying it etc?" ... "ok now how much does a new boat cost and what is your time worth?". Since then, I've probably saved a couple hundred hours by not "taking care of it" by using the floorboard, cleaning or drying it before storage. The floorboard did have one advantage though... if I wanted to throw down a couple anchors to make the boat perfectly still, I could stand up to cast!!

Tough little rig for sure. It feels cheap/fragile but 8 years of use and a lot of abuse, leaving it under the sun at 35+ degrees, dragging it up on rocks, driving into stumps, against jagged ice, never cleaning, throwing heavy batteries in. For the last couple years, I figure every trip might be its last, but it continues to survive... bonus each time!!

[ruger#1]

Nice work! Didnt know people ate crawfish...might have to try some!

Just make a dip out of mixing Miracle Whip, And ketchup together until it turns pink. Dad and I used to catch them with a fishing rod and a Eulachon tied to the end of the line. We also used cage traps. It was a family thing. We would boil them on the spot.

[ruger#1]

I started several years ago... once or twice a year we'll get our traps down somewhere and they fill up... we take the biggest ones to make up our limit and have a feast. Garlic butter and a little lemon!! :)

Snorkeling for them is fun too. I know a few good lakes with crayfish that are really clear, so we'll be doing some underwater video, probably sometime between mid July and mid September. I find August to October are the magic months. I imagine the lakes and creeks on the Island are full of them too, so you shouldn't need to venture too far!

Try the big pool below the Hayward dam. Told by
someone who dives, That there are ledges that they like to sit on. Nice clean water.

[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]

http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t644/vaporeyes/crayfish05_zpsbf4f9f55.jpg

http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t644/vaporeyes/crayfish02_zpsb717d315.jpg

[caddisguy]

http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t644/vaporeyes/crayfish01_zps786dcd69.jpg

[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.

[Wild one]

crayfish are in most of the waters in the lower mainland

Any place that holds a salmon run seems to hold higher numbers. Looking for locations with clean clear water is more of the limiting issue.

[ruger#1]

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.

Salmon river was good in the seventies. Not much run off in the Dewdney slough. It has a dyke on both sides and the water is blue.

[REDGREEN]

MMMMMMMM minnie lobsters with garlic butter.

[FourOhs]

Man, I've been Jonesing for a boat after lately rediscovering my love for fishing. That Fish Hunter with an electric motor is exactly what I want... no, NEED! My wife would never understand how absolutely *vital* this purchase is... don't Add to Cart... don't do it! ...

[caddisguy]

Man, I've been Jonesing for a boat after lately rediscovering my love for fishing. That Fish Hunter with an electric motor is exactly what I want... no, NEED! My wife would never understand how absolutely *vital* this purchase is... don't Add to Cart... don't do it! ...

Lol check to see if you can find it local so you don't have to pay shipping. I've seen Wholesale, Canadian Tire. Army & Navy and Walmart carry them. Last seen at Wholesale. I like the FH-280 (the 9foot one) ... the smaller ones you'd be hard pressed to fit 2 and would probably be hard to control. My brother has the big one... lots more space but uses more battery, takes up a little more room, etc. Either the medium or large one is the way to go. Good deal though... say $250 boat + $140 motor + $120 battery + $80 motor mount and you got a pretty durable boat for around $600-$700. Vital purchase I would say!! Again, I've had mine around 6 years and it's seen hundreds of days on the water, left to bake in the sun, dragged through rocks, run up against log jams and it just keeps working. I do have a spare for that one day it breaks and is not worth repairing. So far I've only had to patch it once... first day out I sat on some need nose players lol