Washington Crawfish Colors

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dutchman2858
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Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by dutchman2858 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 7:11 pm

I'm curious about wild crawfish colors in WA. I'm sure there are variables including substrate color, food, etc. With that in mind, any input on crawfish colors in Lake Goodwin and Lake Stevens (Western WA) and Chelan, Banks and Potholes (Eastern WA) would be appreciated!

TrackerPro16
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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by TrackerPro16 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 8:47 pm

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/shellfish/st ... rules.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This has the info down the page a bit.

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dutchman2858
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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by dutchman2858 » Tue Mar 14, 2017 8:55 pm

Thanks, Tracker! Interesting that there's only one species here and it has uniform brownish color. If anyone has seen any other colors I'd appreciate the comments.

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fisherman92
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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by fisherman92 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 7:03 am

Brown, Orange, & Red (sometimes with hints of green, yellow, or blue) Typical Crawdad lure colors. They are typically white colored on their bellies and when they have eggs under them those are usually dark grey/black colored. I used to catch a lot of crawdads on Goodwin and they all shared those main colors brown/orange. Some more orange-ish than others. Same goes for the crawdads I have gotten on the eastside on Spectacle Lake when there used to be an abundance there. I had some good luck last year with crawdad colored jigs which were typically brownish with yellow/orange/green tints added in them.

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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by TrackerPro16 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 8:55 am

Oops. There are other crayfish. I thought that link had the invasive species also. Sorry about that. Here are the other links.

http://www.invasivespecies.wa.gov/prior ... fish.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Down towards the bottom there is a link for identification of all of them. It would not work when I put it on here.

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fisherman92
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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by fisherman92 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 2:12 pm

Also, The crawdads I see a lot around here have the white dots on both claws right where their pinchers intercept. That's how they are a bit easier to see when spotting them. So that's a good feature to have to a crawdad lure, but I haven't seen many that reflect the white dots.

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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by Sideburns » Wed Mar 15, 2017 2:58 pm

Although ive noticed white bumps occasionally, all my river craws have been dark reddish brown.
"If it still works, take it apart and find out why!"

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dutchman2858
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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by dutchman2858 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 3:34 pm

Very educational, guys--Thanks! Now to catch a bass with all this new info :cheers:

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Re: Washington Crawfish Colors

Post by tooboocoo » Wed Mar 15, 2017 5:27 pm

I was fishing the Snake River at Boyer Park for the first time several years ago. The first smallie I caught coughed up a brilliant orange crawfish. I started digging up any lure I had that was orange. Cranks, grubs, tubes all caught fish that day as long as it was orange.

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