Ground Crawfish & trout

My son been catching huge crawfish in his minnow traps and i wanted to gring some up and freeze. Same with scraps from cleaning trout minus the guts. I plan on putting them in pint or quart size plastic jars and freezing till the fall. Is there anything i need to add to preserve em..... salt/SB? When i take a jar out in the fall i dont plan on freezing it again. Just using it till its gone than pull alother one out.

I don't believe there is a better coon bait than ground crawdads. I let them sit out over night and freeze them the next morning. makes the smell a little louder.

Add Salt or no

I never have. I just thaw out what I need. I have salted fish though and that works good. not as good as crawdads . they are such a preferred food that come trapping season when coons cant get many if any, a hole in the bank with some shoved in wont get passed up very often.

I did the same thing last year kept them out of the minnow trap ground them up added some salt an good to go worked good just another trick in the bag so to speak

i'd use methylparaben rather then salt or sodium benzoate, it'll keep it from molding and keeps the flavor more appealing to coon.

mud bugs work on yotes as well

When you grind them they can get soupy.

Do you grind them shell and all?

Yes shell and all. Buy a seine if you dont have one. I like to get several gallons in a five gallon bucket. Just dump crawdads in a grinder when you get home. I put them in quart canning jars after grinding. Canning jars are thick glass that doesn't break easy. A case with lids will hold three gallons and costs less than 10 bucks at walmart. Let them set out, ground, in summer weather, about 6-8 hours before you freeze. A very slight taint. Gives them a little louder smell. You wont need any lure. Thaw it as you need it. If you have a bait frig put open partially empty jars in it when you get home from trapping. You can just leave the closed jar outside also and rethaw on your pickup defroster if you need to. Usually a metal butter knife will get some loose. In coon trapping weather it just wont refreeze hard very often.



Mine has never gotten watery.

this is my grinder. use a big course plate. not one of those little grinders they sell for kitchen use that grinds real fine and real slow.


(that is not crawdads in the bucket it is gizzard shad)