WANTED: crawfish in Kitsap county

[Stegalaw]

I have spent the last six days trying everything and im at a loss please someone help. Ive tried cat food, chicken, and oily fish. Ive tried wildcat, kitsap, and island lake with no success yet. also put them in the creek behind the house (blackjack) and no dads in the pot but did find a dead one in the water while waiding. if it come down to you really dont want your secret to be out we can talk privately. I really miss eating crawfish and refuse to pay 6 to 9 dollars a pound for them. i would really love to talk to any vets in the area, im in the military and just trying to enjoy what washington has to offer besides the rain.

[purechaotic]

Aldrich Lake is a day only lake now but when we would go fishing was pretty good. I usually use chicken, but have also taking (shhhhh don't tell the wife) the wifes nylon socks and put hot dogs, spam, worms etc broke them up in it and used it as a bait bag. My wife will have me chop up bits of hot dog and throw it near shore so she can catch them threw out the day while I'm fishing. I have a float tube so would just try and get traps near the natural debri.

[DavidA]

Stegalaw: I am finding the same thing. There is an extensive posting on this site about crayfish over the years, that is well worth reading, but I haven't caught one in/around Kitsap yet. I've tried Kitsap Lake, Panther Lake and Leland Lake, several times and nothing. The only recommendation I have yet to follow is to use herring as bait. I have tried trout heads, chicken and even older frozen shucked oysters. People on those lakes are having the same results as me, though I'm not sure their bait. Herring may work, but are crayfish that picky that not even one will try anything else? Oh! One more suggestion that I have not tried, due to convenience, is an overnight soak. If they don't move much during the day, this would make a lot of sense. Good luck. I'd appreciate knowing anything that you find out, that might help.
Dave

[Stegalaw]

First off thanks for the replies. Now i have night soaked twice at wildcat, since i have a friend there with a dock, first time was with cat food cans and second was with trout. I am night soaking further down on the creek i put them in last night with chicken, and that is because while walking it we did see tracks in the sand and found a dead one, so ill have to let you know if i have caught anything out of it. ill let you know more after i pull them. i have a lead on another creek that supposedly has them just rolling down stream by the dozen, this is from a gentleman that i ran into walking the creek and asking him if he has seen any. I will have to try that creek and let you know.

[MotoBoat]

First off thanks for the replies. Now i have night soaked twice at wildcat, since i have a friend there with a dock, first time was with cat food cans and second was with trout. I am night soaking further down on the creek i put them in last night with chicken, and that is because while walking it we did see tracks in the sand and found a dead one, so ill have to let you know if i have caught anything out of it. ill let you know more after i pull them. i have a lead on another creek that supposedly has them just rolling down stream by the dozen, this is from a gentleman that i ran into walking the creek and asking him if he has seen any. I will have to try that creek and let you know.

Yanking part of a sentence from the above post where underlined, reads: "we did see tracks in the sand and found a dead one"

Do crayfish or crawdads come out of the water for short periods and leave tracks? Tracking a crawfish/crawdad, would take some talent, and a eye for detail. That is pretty cool to consider.

[Stegalaw]

I have seen them out of water not up here but in the Midwest as far as what the tracks look like they were in the shallow areas of the water were it didn't move. The tracks would look like a set of crazy back and forth train rails in the sand if you can find them, where they drag there tail. They crawl forward for what I have seen and swim backwards. On a side note just pulled my pots out of the creek with no luck I'm going to try another spot. Really getting discouraged but I'm stubborn so I know I won't quite till I catch atleast one, but I'm not traveling several hours to get them in know they are here close by.

[Stegalaw]

Well no luck on the new spot. So Minter creek and blackjack creek are both a bust. I might try long lake here soon.

[DavidA]

Ok. I'm still having no success so I went and bought herring (at almost $1 each!) and am going to give Spencer Lake a shot. Update to follow!

[Stegalaw]

cool let me know how it goes. i am definetley interested. i have another lead saying tahuya river.

[schu7498]

While fishing Wye lake from a dock we always saw crayfish running around underwater. Also a sister of mine lives on Minter Creek, I have seen and caught many crayfish by hand from the creek, but I have tried traps in the creek with no luck. Creeks around green mountain are packed with crawdads, used to go there when I was younger to catch them. We have a cabin on the Tahuya, and Ive never seen a crawdad there, but we never looked hard. While fishing the Skokomish Ive caught some monster crawdads that were crawling along the banks just under the water.

[Boulton 21]

It's been a few years, but Island lake outside of Silverdale used to have dads and some damn big ones to boot.
Mission lake has dads also, use to see them in the creek that drains Mission, so I know the lake has them.
In the creeks that are not producing via traps, have you gone any physically looks for dads, flipping rocks and such.......It's not to far fetched to think someone may have dump something in the creek and killed them off.....tweeters would think nothing of dumping their cooking residue in a creek to grt rid of any evidence.......and S. Kitsap is kinda known for it backwood labs......just a thought.

[outbreed360]

tahuya river is full of them. down at the camp spillman campgrounds at about when the sun goes down in the summer massive amounts of dads will be crawling everywhere on the bank. me and a couple of buddies a few years ago had a 5gal bucket almost full in less than an hour, just picking them up off the rivers bank. good sizes ones also.