Washington Crawfish Colors

[dutchman2858]

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]

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.

[dutchman2858]

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.

[fisherman92]

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.

[TrackerPro16]

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.

[fisherman92]

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.

[Sideburns]

Although ive noticed white bumps occasionally, all my river craws have been dark reddish brown.

[dutchman2858]

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

[tooboocoo]

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.