Crawdad tips?

I tried eating the ones i caught as bait but they always tasted a bit muddy. These are Wisconsin crawdads, not sure if the southern ones are different or not.


Any idea how to clean out these river bugs so they're as tasty as the ones I buy from the store?

Ate quite a few when living in Colorado and never had any issue with taste. Did you remove the vein, in the tail, before eating? Have heard that if you feed them cornmeal for a couple days that it cleans out the digestive track. Guess you put them in a container they can't get out of, add water and cornmeal. Never tried it myself.

If you purge the crayfish, before eating them, they should taste better.

Hose them off good and then drain the water. Put a lot of salt on them, add more water and stir them for a few minutes. Rinse them off and then purge and rinse again.

Purging makes them vomit their stomach contents and cleans off most of the dirt and algae.

Keith

Will the salt kill them?

No never removed the mud vein mostly because i havent done that to the whole store bought ones.

A short exposure to heavy salt water won't kill crayfish. A long exposure to heavy salt water will kill them. Crayfish can live in brackish or light saltwater.

People also use heavy saltwater baths on fish to kill parasites. It knocks the fish out, but they quickly revive in fresh water.

Keith

Thanks Keith, appreciate it

You're welcome. It should hopefully make them taste better for you.

Keith

Don’t know if saltwater actually helps or not. Everything I’ve read and watched seems to say to put them in water without food for 12 to 24 hours to clean them out. A study by LSU......


http://www.lsuagcenter.com/portals/commu...urging-crawfish