Crayfish in Ontario

I was in ontario as a kid we used to go catch a few dozen boil em up and away you go. I would be concerned with which body of water you get htem from. For instance I would not eat them out of the red river in the middle of Winnipeg. ( I will eat the fish though) Fished many creeks in and around Winnipeg
 
I wouldn't advise using crayfish as live bait in Ontario. There's an invasive species called the Rusty Crayfish that you don't want to introduce to new waters.

I don't have the fishing regs handy, but there might even already be a crayfish bait ban in place. I recall it was being floated around.
 
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Thanks for the warning MauserMike. But these critters are heading for a pot. I will try a little soaking in the salt water, and definately going to use a crawdad boil. The crawdad boil smells of paprika, cayan, garlic powder and some other spices I have yet to identify. And I will be getting the crayfish out of the headwaters of the Saugeen river where there's lots of speckled trout. So I'm assuming the water is clean. Thanks again for the info.
 
MauserMike said:
I would advise using crayfish as live bait in Ontario. There's an invasive species called the Rusty Crayfish that you don't want to introduce to new waters.

I don't have the fishing regs handy, but there might even already be a crayfish bait ban in place. I recall it was being floated around.
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No ban, yet. But you are correct about the rusty crawfish.

Crayfish: Must be used in same water body where caught. May not be transported overland.
 
I use to catch them and eat them as a kid. They tasted like mud but that could be the way we cooked them and the area we caught them. The ones we use to catch could get pretty big too... It was fun catching them and my dads rule was if you kill it you eat it so mud or not we cooked them up and ate them. I remember with a little butter they where not too bad....
 
Don't forget to pull ( and remove ) the middle tail scale from the tail !
Crayfish spoil very quickly, so cook them as quickly as you can after catching them.

Louisiana Crawfish Boil is the best ( with red potatoes and sweet corn).
 
popcan said:
Anyone tried to skewer and bbq them over a smoky fire? surely that would take out some of the muddyness.

?
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Why not? They do it with lobster and some of the bigger prawns so I'd say try it. Maybe soak them in the salt brine first and then while grilling, brush them with some garlic butter with a tai chili minced in.
 
I didn't think there were any crawfish in BC until I was working in abbotsford last week and found 5 of them in an artificial river on the place I was landscaping. Crushed them accidentally when I moved the rocks, but nonetheless it proved they were there, and surprised me quite a bit. I bet they could taste quite good if gotten from a clean stream and put in some fresh then some salt water.
 
4" and bigger and they got into the pot. cook em and they turn red like a lobster with the same textured meat. very tasty dipped in garlic butter.

they are just like lobster when cooking them though. under cook them and they taste like ass, over cook them and they get rubbery...
 
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