another foraging moment, maybe a LB'ers BBQ next year.....

Off-topic
#1

some of you may know Im a pestie (pest controller) but that I love catching stuff that we can eat, rather than waste, my latest catches have been crayfish, a friend introduced me to an area in hertfordshire where the river is alive with the buggers, and as they are the “red signals” they are not native to britain, therefore classed as a pest, and can be removed all year round, and eaten:D

for those of you not on my facebook, I thought Id show you a few video’s of my antics so far, if you like crayfish tails, or fancy trying them, then perhaps we can sort out a crayfish boil party next year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOZWKIyHXFA

ok, this was our introduction to crayfishing, we caught just shy of 200 that first day, and the kids loved it, better than being glued to an xbox, me included

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FMugAo0LbM

my first attempt at boiling/cooking them, took over 3 hours to boil around 100, because of waiting for stove to heat the water, water changes etc, started thinking we needed a better cooking method

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0U658xyynY

quick question, anyone here have family in the states? as Im after a 60/70 quart pot like above, but the import duties bungs them upto silly money, where as one bought by a states resident, wrapped in birthday paper and sent would probably be a lot cheaper, let me know

so, after watching how the americans do a crawfish boil on utube, I sourced the bits needed to set up our own garden boiler.

we

#2

What we used to do with Lobby and prawns when on the boat was put them in the electric tea urn . You could get enough in there 2 feed 15 hungry crew members :smiley:

#3

Awesome :slight_smile:

I would love to give that a try (catching them I mean).
So do you need a licence to catch them?

#4

You do know that you should have a couple/three kiddie wadding pools right? you put them in the first one, they start to clean up (water filthy), move them to the second and they clean up more (water muddy), move em to the third and they are pretty much clean (water cloudy) THEN you put them in the boil.

If you need any recipes or spice “bags” to put together let me know… family from Texas and we knows how to boil crawdads! :slight_smile:

#5

not so much a license, but you inform the enviroment agency on what area of water you want, they check that white signals are not there (our native crayfish/protected) then if all ok, issue you with tags/serial numbers to attach to your nets, I have 8 nets/tags on a 1 mile stretch of river, top secret location,lol, but Im sure you could tag along next year if you fancied it

#6

crays caught in rivers do not need purging as much as thoughs caught in ponds/lakes, or commercially farmed like in the usa, we keep them in a damp container for a few days, that gets rid of most of the internal shite, giving them a wash over through 2 buckets of water before boiling, whichever way its done, most people still remove the black pipe on tail before eating anyway

yes please to the spice bags:D

#7

i would very much like to tag along some time if possible…

i even wear my onesie :wink:

#8

Friends of ours in Surrey have them in their stream and lake. We caught quite a few in about 40mins. They told us that they’d taste muddy and to put porage outs in in the bucket over night. The problem is that they die over night in the bucket. they did so we never ate them.

#9

thats because your bucket had water in it, did’nt it ?

unless you either have a very large water container, or running water constantly, the crays use the oxygen up very quickly, and end up drowning/dying from suffocation if you like, yet keeping them in a damp sack/pillow case, they will quite happily breathe air for 3 or 4 days

nothing muddy about them

#10

Thats interesting, yes the bucket did have water in it. We had been warned they’d die after we’d been told to take the kids to catch them, we said we’d put’em back but our friends are farmers and see them as vermin.

#11

Would love to!!

#12

[quote]
SneakyMcC (11/12/2011)

[quote]
Ratcatcher (11/12/2011)

[quote]
SneakyMcC (11/12/2011)

totally illegal to return red signal crayfish to the water once removed, as non native that kill our native ones via a fungus they carry (not harmful to us) once removed they must be destroyed by law, or in our case, EATEN

#13

[quote]
Ratcatcher (12/12/2011)

[quote]
SneakyMcC (11/12/2011)

[quote]
Ratcatcher (11/12/2011)

Eating destroys them pretty much I’d say :wink:

+1 for tagging along!