Crayfish Hunting

Last month, my boys and I spent a little time in Minnehaha Creek below the falls. We got their early and started catching crayfish with small nets and our hands. (To be clear, the boys had nets, and dad used his hands. Typical.) I posted some photos on social media noting "According to Charlie, we are going to come back in a few days with a bucket so we can have a crayfish feed. We’ll see..."

Here are some pics:

My boys are the only ones down there! Let's hear it for early weekday mornings!


Netted.


Stalking.


This is what we were after.


More stalking.

And wouldn't you know it, Charlie got his wish. Two days later, I got a fishing license just so I could legally help them catch and keep these suckers. (In MN, we can take up to 25 lbs [not 25 crayfish, but 25 POUNDS] during fishing season as long as they are an inch long from the tip of that "horn" between their eyes to the end of their tail.) We brought a 2 gallon bucket and arrived even earlier this time:

Again, an oddly quiet scene if you are a local.


Our spoils.


Henry with the biggest one of the day...


... and Charlie with the next biggest.


Their 2 biggest (dubbed the "king" and "queen") are on the far right.
Queen had a slight blue/green tint as you can see.


The cats were NOT sure what we brought home!

We rinsed them really well in the yard (where I got my FIRST pinch all day, even after catching many by hand), and then prepped some boiling water with this homemade creole seasoning recipe (only I halved it and didn't have white pepper). I also added a few peeled whole garlic cloves and a quartered lemon. I dumped them in the boiling water for 3 minutes, and Charlie was AMAZED to see them suddenly be bright red when I lifted them out after those 3 minutes!

Don't be alarmed: the little chunks you might see are herbs from the creole
mix and NOT dirt/sand/poop from the crayfish that I didn't get cleaned off.


The boys both sucked the juices out of the heads, and didn't think it was too bad!


A plate of shells after lunch.

Charlie doesn't really care for seafood or shrimp, so he only ate 2 tails. But he decided that the TINY meat in the claws was more mild than the tail meat, so he cracked open and ate a few of the larger claws. Henry and I had the rest of the tails.

Here's a video of trying some of the meat for the first time:


Direct link: https://youtu.be/5vkg6vM_wa8

We might do this again before summer is over. I brought some polish sausage to cook in the boiling water as well, and it's about sweet corn season here in MN so we'll add that as well to make it a bit more of a proper "crayfish boil." Maybe some potatoes and cornbread too, as another friend suggested. I'll report back if this happens...