Crawfish baits

Here in New York it took me a while of checking with regulations, calling ECOs, DEC office, and speaking with biologists to narrow down that we can actually pod for crawfish in NY. Now our stream crawfish aren’t anything like southern spillways, but I would imagine bait has to be similar. Heard it all depends on the purge, but heard fish leaves a fish flavor, pellets are clean.

But has anyone on here used beaver or anything from the trap line recycled as crawfish bait. Have a 5 gallon bucket of beaver meat left over from the season, would this be good to use for crawfish or is it going to leave a rotten meat taste on the crawfish.

Thanks, Nick

Beaver meat might work, everything seems to like beaver. Let us know how it works if you try it.


Cut chunks of shad, menhaden, carp, are the standard baits here. Catfish and catfish heads are excellent bait as well.


The least effective fish I’ve used for crawfish bait has been bass, crappie, and bluegill scraps/heads. I don’t know why but when I’ve tried them, they caught a small fraction of what the catfish, shad, menhaden, and carp caught.


If they taste bad, I doubt it’s using fish for bait that’s doing it. I’d suspect their water quality, regular diet, and handling would have something to do with it before the bait would

Muskrat

When I said that crawdads would eat beaver..which they do...everyone made jokes about it.

.they'll eat muskrat and even coon in the right circumstances

Aix sponsa- I think they might stay away from bass, crappie and blue girls due to the scales being so thing. Do you suppose that might affect their ability or desire to target that bait?

I don’t have any fish scraps left over besides a couple of trout in the freezer from last season, I used all my scraps up during trapping season.

Might just give it a go and see what happens. Only way I learn is first hand so trial and error I guess

chicken liver is cheap and works. i like to seine them. To guys with a seine in a good ditch can fill a five gallon bucket pretty quick

I thought about chicken liver just from catching crayfish while cat fishing. But with the size of them they can get chewed up pretty quick and I want a good chunk to sit in a pod and not get chewed up by minnows and crayfish quickly.

Shad, menhaden and carp are oilier than bass, bluegill and crappie are. The oilier fish's scent will carry farther in the water and is stronger.

Keith

As Keith pointed out, I think it has to do with the oil/scent, because when I was using bass/crappie/bluegill, they were scraps after filleting them. Flesh was exposed. The difference in catch was very noticeable. Catfish heads were great.

Liver and bacon certainly attract them, but they get consumed so quickly by crawfish and fish. This is why I think catfish heads work so well, because they not only attract but also can’t be entirely consumed. If you want to use something soft for bait I’d recommend using some sort of bait cage or using something that’s tougher but still attractive

I've used muskrat for years , mainly because I usually have muskrat meat in the freezer, I've had trapps in the Green River packed full of dad's with the outside covered with more wanting in.

if youre trapping them try canned cat food, the fish flavored ones seem best. theyre usually pop-top cans. open the lid about half way, then bend it back so its just open a crack. hang it from the pop-top ring so its suspended in the trap.

Beaver is ok but you want something fresh and oily like what you'd use for turtles. Getting the first couple in the trap is key imo. I've heard range cubes are a good second bait to have in the trap to keep them them there eathing

The best bait for crayfish is garlic

I'll have to try .