|
|
Posts: 720
| Hi all,
This maybe a silly question and if covered before I'm sorry (will do a search later) for that. My question is this do pred fish like musky, northern, walleye and bass feed on rusty crayfish?
Thanks
Dave |
|
| |
|
Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | Bass especially love them. I've cleaned walleye from the Cisco Chain and found belly's full of the little devils. Musky and Northern's aren't really bottom feeders, but I assume they'd eat their share as well. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | In a lot of cases of Rusty invasions the DNR uses smallmouth bass to help curtail the population. They can make for some very big smallies! |
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Yep Smallies LOVE them! Perch and bluegills will also feed on them. |
|
| |
|
| Fence lake grows some big smallies for that reason! |
|
| |
|
| Smallmouth bass especially enjoy crayfish |
|
| |
|
Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | I've been known to eat the Louisiana variety in three to five pound batches. If you really want to live good, boil 'em up in a turkey fryer with some andouille, corn on the cob, baby red potatoes, and shell on shrimp. Pour a huge pile on a butcher paper covered picnic table, sprinkle heavily with Cajun seasoning, and start pinching and sucking. Serve with long neck beers out of an ice filled barrel.
It's reeeeaaal good, I guarantee.
You might want to make sure there's a tight lid on your garbage can, because the debris from this particular type of feast is likely to attract several hundred raccoons, and they're quite crafty.
Kevin
A round of Muskies for all my friends.
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | In addition to the clean water act of 1972 and associated industry clean-ups, the rustys have played a big role in the Smallie explosion over the past 20 years. I love it! |
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | One thing the crayfish do however is dominate the weeds in the lake, which can be a detriment to the fishery. Like someone said earlier Smallmouth Bass are stocked to help balance the population of rusty's. Rusty's sure reproduce though. They are an exotic species that can be controlled to a point though as opposed to the Zebra Muscle that can really do some damage to a system. I hope those things dont get into Northern waters. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Too late. Zebra M's and other invasives have shown up in some N WI waters, and are likely to spread further.
http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/zebramussels/what_are_zm.html#wherenow
Rustys are NASTY, and are not much of a benefit anywhere. They changed Pelican so much it's difficult to even fathom the damage, and other lakes up here where good weeds used to exist are now devoid of all vegetation. The original N Wisconsin crayfish are displaced by these far more aggressive plant and everything else eaters, and even though gamefish do eat them fish populations don't seem to be able to keep up, not even Smallmouth Bass.
The Rusty takes a forward 'attack' posture when threatened by a fish, and I've seen bass, perch, and even Pike back away from them when they snap up their claws and dash toward a game fish that is posed to eat. Reminds me of that mouse cartoon where the hawk is about to strike...
Destructive little bastards.
http://www.iisgcp.org/EXOTICSP/rusty_crayfish.htm
They do eat just fine, being larger than the native species. This is the only fitting final solution for a Red Rusty!
Attachments
----------------
 DSC_0187.JPG (45KB - 142 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Steve,
I only see a couple of lakes up north that have them. Are there many steps being taken to help prevent the spread of the muscles up there besides the standard sign that says clean your boat? I know its tough to stop the spread and we cant put people at every single launch. Zebra's can be stopped by spraying down the boat with hot water, pumping out the bilge and cleaning off all of the weeds and weed particles. If for some reason you cant take all of these steps you should leave your boat out of the water for at least 24 hours, 36 would probably be better. We can all help prevent the spread if we just take the time to clean off our boat. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Bilge water and livewell water is another culprit. If you fish infested waters, you need to bleach your livewell and drain the bilge completely. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 24
Location: coon rapids mn | heard a report at myliesplace on lotw that a guest cleaned some walleyes with some of them in the stomach |
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Another thing that I have read is to not use the same bait from one lake to another which might be difficult if you are fishing suckers in the fall and save them in a tank. Perhaps if you save suckers if you would flush out your tank and maybe give your suckers a little salt rinse before putting them in new water. Also, be sure to flush out your motors as the zebra's can sit in there as well.
|
|
| |
|
| yes , musky and smallies will eat crayfish, have seen muskies here on the flambeau river several times suck in a crayfish and have caught quite afew skis throwing tube jigs. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 20219
Location: oswego, il | I talked to a guy who has fished vermillion for many many years. Imagine the east side with cabbage in all the bays, all the sandy indentations on the islands. Yep, 20 years ago. My kids take a leader on their pole and stick it in front of a rusty and they grab it. They get a bucketfull in an hour.
I have seen shallow areas on some wi lakes where there is one every square foot. Those lakes have bare bottom. Lost habitat is not good and in some lakes walleyes have ate their way past their forage base. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 906
Location: Warroad, Mn | The LOTWs seems to have lots of them, and they have changed many areas from weeds to rocks. The Angle area has just been invaded in the past 5-6 years. Many weed beds are disapearing. How this will effect reproduction and fry survival remains to be seen.
The smallies seem to be doing well!
Doug Johnson |
|
| |
|
Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | Does anybody ever trap them? The DNR? I looked up traps and you can buy them for like $30 bucks. Seems like the DNR could trap a heck of a lot of them. I suppose you would have manpower issues, but what if the state supplied traps to resort owners. Todd says his kids can fill a bucket in an hour, how many could you get in a big trap overnight?
I thought I read something somewhere about a University project that was doing something to them so they wouldn't reproduce, but I have know idea when or where. It was before I started fishing so it's all fuzzy.
Kevin
Attachments
----------------
BCraw2[1].jpg (43KB - 264 downloads)
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | There are some commercial trappers out there that trap the lakes here depending on the overseas market price. Even when the traps are every 10 yards or so on the east end of Pelican, the bottom moves with Rustys.
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | I agree, destructive as hell. My last post had an 'I love it comment'. That was directed only at the smallie resurgance statewide. Rustys have ruined the weeds, hence spots, in many of the lakes I fish, and continue to do so. Amazing what the little things can do in just a few short years once in a system. Zebras are now here in a few lakes around my home town, and in the WI River. Tough battle, but needs to be fought.
Edited by Reef Hawg 1/2/2007 10:43 PM
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Yeah Pelican is LITTERED with Rusty's. Lots of people trap them out there Hopefull, it just doesnt even put a dent in them. We trap them and use the tails as bait for gills and perch.
Thats the main problem with invasives is they do not really have a natural predator so nothing to keep them in check. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | I guess I was thinking you could take out, say, ten thousand a day for 200 days, that would be two million. That's 200 in 50 big traps every day. I'm sure they lay a ton of eggs, but it seems two million a year for five years would really slow them down. How many could possibly be in the lake, five million, ten, two hundred million? Obviously I have no idea. Maybe it's too simple to make sense.
This stuff sucks, though. My sister lives on a lake here in Waukesha County. Beautiful sand frontage. The zebra mussels are so bad that my daughter (or anyone else) can no longer walk on the sand bottom of her frontage without swimming shoes or the shells would shred her feet. The lake which was always clear, is starting to look like the West Arm of Eagle. It has changed a lot in the last ten to fifteen years.
Kevin |
|
| |
|
Posts: 2091
Location: Stevens Point, WI | One of the lakes I fish in Oneida County has been decimated of weeds the past few years with the crayfish and the DNR has posted a voluntary catch and release of bass to help curb the population. People have been trapping as well and it seems to be helping a little bit. I remember Big Arb when it was cleaned out of weeds and it has bounced back very nicely after the crayfish cycle turned around after literally eating themselves out. The first lake mentioned is still very fishable without the weeds, now there is a good breakline, rock and crib bite. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 34
Location: Forest Lake Minnesota | Leech lake in Mn also has a large population of Rusty crayfish and I think there will be some sort of a study done to see if they may also be part of the problem with the natural reproduction of walleyes. I think the study is being done through the University of Bemidji and they will try to find out if the crayfish are eating walleye eggs.
Good Luck,
Dave |
|
| |
|
Posts: 8782
| What we need to do is replace the Friday night fish fry with the Friday night crayfish boil. You won't get them all, but if people start trapping them and eating them it's got to make some difference.
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | If the North Atlantic can be emptied of lobsters you would think a lake could be emptied of crayfish.
Kevin
Here musky, musky, musky. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Apparently it's a pretty impossible chore, there are just too many once Rustys get established. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 8782
| I can remember catching them as a kid. We always thought the ones with the spots and the red tipped claws were the males and that was why they were meaner than the other ones. Never knew they were invasive. It was a safe bet though that if you caught one with spots you'd get pinched. Little buggers would actually go after you when you'd reach in the bucket. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Lobsters probably have more natural predators and a reproduction rate that is much lower. You should see the rusty's in our boat lift when we take it our of Pelican.....they are all over the place, many crawl in the pipes and never make it out. Trapping all of the out sounds like it wouldnt be to hard but you would need traps covering almost all of the lake. You would have to find out the trapping radius of each trap and then figure out the area of the lake bottom and put traps so all of the areas would effectivley be covered. Also would take multiple trap nights to try and get rid of them all. If even 1 of each sex survive you would have failed. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 8782
| I agree that complete irradication is unreasonable, but I do think that the population could be controlled quite easily if there was a market for them as a food source. It's worked with just about everything else that humans have aquired a taste for. The only problem I see with that is harvesting the native crayfish along with the rusty crayfish.
Hey...
Do rusty crayfish eat milfoil?? Or carp eggs? I think I may have an idea!  |
|
| |
|
| alot of lakes that once had a crazy amount of rustys and lost alot or almost all of their weeds seem to be coming back with more and more weeds..is this to assume that the smallies etc are putting a dent in the rustys so weeds are now coming back ?
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Brad,
It could be that the rusty's have eaten themselves out of food and are now starving to death and allowing the weeds to start coming back. That scenario coupled with the smallies doing some damage on the remaining starved rusty's could by why you are seeing a rebound in the weeds. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Do the Rustys tear into the Milfoil like they do native veggies?? I can remember just starting to study them at UWSP when there, but alot needed to be learned by the proffessionals yet. Mike has it right though, as they do seem to cycle out once they've beaten the weeds down. One 150 acre pond in southern Vilas used to be my favorite little cabbage lake. It just got hammered by them. The Muskies, though still in there, have been tougher to nail down the past couple years. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Must have been nice to actually learn about things that are interesting.....so far in 3 years all I have learned is there are a lot of BAD prof's out there! |
|
| |
|
Posts: 34
Location: Forest Lake Minnesota | Maybe the MN DNR should stock smallmouth bass in Leech Lake. I for one am infavor of this if it would help and the potential for big smallmouths in that lake would be good.
Good Luck,
Dave |
|
| |
|
Posts: 8782
| I don't think rusty crayfish are the answer to the millfoil problem. As bottom dwellers, they might actually make the problem worse. Feeding on the bottom of the plant would leave the top portions to float away and take root somewhere else, which would actually contribute to the milfoil problem. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 3518
Location: north central wisconsin | Mike, going to UWSP taking the same classes and seeing some of the products of those profs, has been why I do not take every word of some of our experts as gospel. If they learned from bad profs, how good can they be?? I feel the quality experts in the field that are worthy of their titles, learned much of what they know, while doing their Masters work out on their own, and that has set them apart from the rest. Just observations and opinion of course. That said, I had some outstanding professors there too, and my upper level coursework instructors were very well versed in their teachings, though I was not a fisheries major. If I were you, and held those opinions, I'd let my advisor and dean(is it still Dr. Haney?) know about it. You are paying thier wage and for quality instruction. If the masses agree with you, then there is a problem.
Edited by Reef Hawg 1/3/2007 4:13 PM
|
|
| |
|
Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | I'm hoping that now that I am taking some "real" courses that the professors will get better. I've tried to play "I pay your salary card numerous times." I still get blown off by profs and others. I also do a lot of reading about stuff I care about on my own and form my own opinions on what I see out fishing or in the field.
This semester.....no general chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, math or any of those relatively dull uneventfull subjects! I got to learn about FISH!!! |
|
| |
|
Location: New Richmond, WI | I have a cabin on the Upper Eau Claire lake in northern Wisconsin. We have been watching the rusty's come up river for the last 20 years. Right now the Lower and Middle Eau Claire have almost all the weed beds eaten, the Upper is just now getting hit, the only thing slowing them down getting to our lake was the dam, but they made it.
Since they have just gotten to our lake they are larger than those on Middle and Lower, like someone said before they are eating themselves out of food and growing smaller with lack of food. Like Steve said earlier that in the right conditions if you look at the floor of the lake in some areas the floor does move because of so many crawdads.
This last year I have just started to notice that some of the thick weedlines were getting more and more sparse, not as tall. I don't know if lack of weeds had anything to do with this but this was the first year that you were not swearing at all the small hamerhandles hitting our lures. Bass population is up but will never put a dent in the crawdad population.
I was told Yellow Lake in WI put sturgeon in the lake with some success. I haven't been able to look into that yet. Upper had sturgeon in the lake before the dams were put in so I don't know if that would be a option.
|
|
| |
|
Location: Northern Wisconsin | the lake i used to fish had so many on most spots of the lake if you let you leech or crawler sit on the bottem
a rusty would cling on. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 20219
Location: oswego, il | Rusties are in the lakes down here too EA. This is not gospel but an observation. It seems where weeds grow in harder bottom like sand or areas that are not total muck is where the rusties do the damage. I have seen some backwater muck areas where it seems they don't touch that weedgrowth. Many of the lakes near us are primarily muck and the weeds much more dense, that too can possibly be an issue as well, weed density. |
|
| |
|
Posts: 770
Location: Ames, Iowa | This topic got covered really well back in September on Jim Murphy's site, fishingleechlake.com
I have seen the entire Battle Point cabbage bed disappear in the last 4 years. Last year I could not find it. Portage Bay weeds are getting harder to find. Very bad looking cabbage all over Leech last summer. Now all this might be caused by the lower water level (though that might help cabbage growth) warm water, boat traffic, global warming, but when you put an underwater camera in the water in some places on that lake, the bottom moves it is so thick with crayfish. What impact do they have on the eggs of spawners and on the forage fishes' ability to find cover? We have commercial trappers come and take them by the pontoon-load, but there are only a few of them and the lake is 112,000 acres, and still the crayfish are there in unreal numbers. I think if there is any benefit of the rusty's it's that when small they make great food for the walleyes and perch. I do not know if the intro of smallies on this fishery will impact the rusty for quite alot of years. And what impact could the intro of smallies have on the other gamefish? So many issues created by the addition of this exotic.
Don
|
|
| |
