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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 |
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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. |
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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! |
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Yep Smallies LOVE them! Perch and bluegills will also feed on them. |
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| Fence lake grows some big smallies for that reason! |
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| Smallmouth bass especially enjoy crayfish |
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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.
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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! |
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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. |
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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!
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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.
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| 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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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
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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.
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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
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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.
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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. |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Apparently it's a pretty impossible chore, there are just too many once Rustys get established. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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!  |
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