Crayfish without side struts - catching crayfish from the shore, boats

Many fishermen, when going fishing, combine regular fishing with crayfish fishing, but do not use special gear. The fact is that you can catch crayfish with your hands if you need very little of them. At the same time, most fishermen do not know how to catch crayfish and what is needed for this. After reading this article, you can quickly learn how to catch these unusual underwater inhabitants.

Crayfish for catching crayfish from the shore - boats

A crayfish, unlike a fishing rod, is intended for mass catching of crayfish with one device from the shore or boat. True, in both cases you cannot do without bait.

One of the homemade folding shells is shown in the photograph, the main advantage of which, having four side spacer posts, is the simplicity of the design.

Manufacturing technologies and methods for catching crayfish with crayfish and primitive homemade traps are discussed in detail on the following pages of this topic.

Many forms of crayfish have been invented, but even for the same crayfish catcher, the designs of crayfish can be different, having certain advantages and disadvantages.

In real conditions of catching crayfish with bait, when placed in working position from the shore or boat, meshes (crawlers, crayfish traps) can occupy a horizontal or vertical position in space.

Horizontal crayfish traps have a couple or more entries for crayfish and require horizontal stretching along the bottom of the reservoir. There may be several baits inside a decent sized device. But the most profitable thing is to set the bait on a stretch that the crayfish cannot reach.

The frame rings of the horizontal shell are located perpendicular to the bottom plane. Most of these homemade structures resemble “muzzles” for fish entry. The advantage of such devices is the possibility of installing a trap in the shallows near the shore of a reservoir.

We have never caught crayfish with horizontal crayfish traps either from the shore or from a boat, so in the article I will not invent anything about installing such crayfish traps.

A vertical crayfish without side struts, intended for catching crayfish, both from the shore and from a boat, can serve as an ordinary crayfish with a bait placed in the middle of the net.

But in order for the satiated crayfish to not have time to leave the net field, such a crayfish trap will have to be frequently and quickly lifted out of the water, scaring away the approaching crayfish. It is advisable to tighten the net on a small fish, adapted for catching crayfish, with a large slack.

You can see the appearance of one of the vertical shells with side struts for the side mesh in the image under the title of the article. Its design is very similar to our crayfish traps, which were once used to catch the first crayfish in the reservoir closest to the city.

And, despite the simplicity of the homemade device, this is perhaps one of the most successful and convenient crayfish traps for catching crayfish with bait from the shore and boat.

The peculiarity and advantage of all vertical crayfish traps is that they have one crayfish entry neck and the shape of a cone truncated at the top.

In the working position, crayfish traps for catching crayfish are lowered to the bottom of the reservoir from the shore or boat with the neck up. But first, bait should be placed within the perimeter of the crayfish net.

What seasons are the best for catching crayfish?

Cancer is very sensitive to changes in weather conditions, as well as to water temperature. And that’s why it is caught differently at different times of the year. Fishing times:

January and February are very cold times of the year and cancer practically does not leave its shelter. So fishing is reduced to a minimum or absent altogether.
In March and April it is caught, but very poorly. Since he is just starting to get out of his holes after the big cold.
In May and June, the crayfish begins molting and is caught, but not well enough yet. But immediately after molting, he begins to eat.
July and August are good for fishing as they gain fat before spawning.
But September and October are considered the most favorable and trophy fishing periods. The shells do their job perfectly. Before winter he gets hungry again. Caviar begins to appear.
November, December are good times for fishing. The crayfish becomes fatty, and the females gradually accumulate eggs.
In the period from October to May - caviar crayfish.

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Advantages of catching crayfish with crayfish traps

The main advantage of catching crayfish from the shore or boat with crayfish traps with side vertical struts is that it is not necessary to frequently check the traps - it is not so easy for crayfish caught in captivity to get out.

The second advantage: in the interval between checking the crayfish traps, the crayfisher has a lot of free time, for example, to fish with a fishing gum abandoned nearby. The result: there is always fresh bait in stock, and the family has the opportunity to replenish fish stocks in the refrigerator.

The third advantage of a crayfish trap with side struts compared to an open-type trap is the ability of a relatively small device to collect crayfish in a heap based on the smell or sight of bait and at once raise a considerable catch.

Therefore, specialists involved in catching crayfish for sale catch arthropods only with crayfish traps, of which a real crayfish fisherman may have dozens. You just need to first find out what the legislation in your region says about this.

And certain advantages when catching crayfish with crayfish are provided by the bait selected and correctly placed inside the trap on a stretcher.

Proven recipes for bait for catching crayfish

The best homemade bait for catching crayfish is different for each fisherman. But there are universal, time-tested recipes.

Garlic

Ingredients for preparing bait:

Rye bread;
garlic.

Garlic is grated or cut in half and crushed. With the second option the aroma will be stronger. The bread is cut into pieces and lightly fried in oil. It is permissible to use the product without frying. Garlic is crushed inside the bread and rubbed onto the crust. You can make garlic balls. To prepare them, I pass the garlic together with the loaf through a meat grinder, and the resulting mass is rolled into small balls. To prevent them from becoming soggy in water, they are placed in nylon or gauze bags.

Photo 2. Bread with garlic - delicious!

From the top

Bait ingredients:

cake;
bread;
dill.

The compressed sunflower seeds are cut into medium pieces. Rye bread and dill are added to them. It is advisable that the dill be fresh. But you can also use dried. Mix everything thoroughly and place in gauze. The crayfish bait is ready!

Fish

Before preparing the bait, fish are caught from the reservoir where the crayfish live. Fresh frozen from the store will also work. An incision is made along the ridge. The air bubble from the carcass is squeezed out or punctured. The scales need to be picked, but it is better to remove them from the crucian carp. Large fish are cut into pieces, and small fish are used whole.

Hepatic

Bait ingredients:

beef liver;
flavoring (shrimp) or fish oil;
chicken entrails.

The liver is left in a warm place for 1-2 days to allow it to spoil. Then it is cut into small pieces and covered with flavoring or sprinkled with a small amount of fish oil. Add some chicken entrails or skins. The finished bait for crayfish is wrapped in gauze.

Frog

Crayfish love missing and dried carcasses. The dead frog is cut into two or four parts and the skin is removed. You can pick up the dried remains of amphibian bodies near the reservoir where you plan to catch crayfish.

Pea

Canned peas are mixed with dill and poured into cheesecloth. You can add corn, corn, grasshoppers, canned food, and leftover homemade food to it. All this will appeal to crayfish.

Photo 3. Pea crayfish bait.

Folding shell without side struts

Many lovers of crayfish fishing mainly use the designs of folding crayfish traps without side struts, consisting only of two horizontal hoops with sides covered with a soft mesh. The only thing simpler than this design could be a flat hoop crayfish trap installed near the shore.

Such shells have minimal weight and small thickness when assembled. Folding crayfish traps without side struts do not need to be assembled for the process of catching crayfish from the shore or boat, and they do not need to be disassembled when packing for home.

As strange as it may sound, such crayfish traps are more reliable in the process of catching crayfish with bait than some of their counterparts with side struts. You can also place bait inside the trap on a stretcher without any problems.

It happens that the side stands of crayfish traps, after being installed in the working position and with active intervention in the process of the crayfish inside the trap, fold. The result of catching crayfish with a folded trap does not require comment.

How to install shells?

The location of the crayfish depends on what type of shell is used. Depending on the shape of the gear, the installation method may differ significantly:

Cone. It is advisable to install from a boat. Rakolov swims to the desired place and, holding the top foam plastic, gradually lowers the crayfish into the water. If this is not possible, then the stick is threaded through the last bunch of ropes and installed near the shore. But still, it is better to put tackle of this shape from a boat.
Ball. A rope is tied to the crayfish and simply thrown into the water so that the bait does not fall out, without any sudden movements. In this case, there is no significant difference in how the installation will be carried out from the shore or from a boat.
Rectangular. With this form of gear, it is best to install from the shore. It is placed where there is a smooth descent of the bottom and there are no sharp cliffs of the shore. The principle of casting is the same as for a ball, but you just need to be more careful so that there is no confusion.

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It is better to place other types of crayfish shells of non-standard shape from a boat, since they need to be lowered evenly.

Lures for catching crayfish with a crayfish

Specialists have no problems with baits for catching crayfish with crayfish traps. Cancer is considered an omnivorous character. Therefore, within the crayfish trap, most edible products can be placed at the bottom of the trap or on a stretch above the bottom.

It is generally accepted that the best bait for catching crayfish with various types of traps are spoiled products. But try placing half-rotten and fresh fish next to each other in a crayfish trap.

And make sure that the crayfish will prefer to eat the fresh product first, and the spoiled fish will act as bait, the smell of which the crayfish can smell from afar.

In addition to fish (see photo), meat and a wide variety of other products are used as bait for catching crayfish from the shore and boat.

For fishermen, the most common bait for catching crayfish from the shore is small specimens of dead fish.

To do this, the abdomen of the carcasses is cut, in larger specimens the sides are cut or the fish are cut into slices. It is better to use fish from the carp family as crayfish bait.

A more expensive product for crayfish baits is meat scraps. For a lasting smell, it is better to lightly scorch the meat over a fire before placing it in the crayfish trap.

Inconvenient traps for fishing, but tempting for crayfish, are baits such as worms, snails, and clams. As a matter of principle, we don’t touch frogs. As mentioned above, small fish are promising baits for catching crayfish. The photo shows the top.

A very good bait for catching crayfish from the shore and boat is a mixture of garlic and bread passed through a hand press. But visually, crayfish will distinguish bait made from white mashed bread better than bait made from dark rye flour.

Offal of meat products is a very good bait for catching crayfish. Crayfish happily eat the lungs and spleen of animals. As bait, you can place bones burned on gas or on a fire in a device for catching crayfish.

But in different bodies of water, crayfish react completely differently to different baits. It is better for the crayfisher to experiment with them himself directly in the process of catching crayfish from the shore or boat.

By the way, a bait placed inside the crayfish on a highly raised streamer will quickly attract the attention of the crayfish.

Catching crayfish with a crayfish trap

Catching crayfish this way is a fairly simple process. But, in order for this process to be effective and productive, it is necessary to take into account some nuances. For example:

To catch a crayfish, you need to attract it to the crayfish trap. To do this, you should use aromatic bait in the form of meat (chicken legs, necks and other parts). To add flavor, it is roasted over a fire. The main thing is that the bait is fresh. Of course, many people believe that crayfish prefer spoiled meat, which gives off a specific smell, but this is not so.
Properly placed bait is also important . It is placed in the center of the bottom of the crayfish trap. In this case, it needs to be firmly fixed with wire. There should be a lot of bait, which will significantly increase the catch. When the bait is eaten, the crayfish begin to look for a way out. But only a few can be lucky and get out of the trap. Some crayfish traps use special containers to store bait.
The clamshell should be placed at a depth of up to one and a half meters . At the same time, it should stand in water for no more than 7 hours. Of course, there are structures that can be left in the water for the whole day, but for this you will have to use a large amount of bait.

If you take into account all these nuances, you can easily catch a large number of crayfish. Of course, if they are in the selected body of water.

Placing bait in the crayfish trap

Correct placement of bait in a crayfish trap helps to increase the catch and speed up the process of filling a trap with crayfish installed near the shore or from a boat (see drawing).

In large crayfish traps with a horizontal orientation in space, the bait can be placed and not in a single copy.

And inside a vertical crayfish trap, it is better to place the bait so that it is better visible from outside the trap, but not every crayfish that has already penetrated into the crayfish trap could freely get to it.

A bait placed in the middle of the crayfish can help satisfy both of these requirements, for which it is tied to a stretch of nylon cord tied in the middle of the upper hoop.

Regarding the placement of the bait inside the shell, a picture is drawn that does not require explanation.

As a result, we have a long-lasting bait raised above the bottom of the crayfish trap, which is not very accessible to crayfish, but is clearly visible to them outside the trap.

And one more observation. If you can use fresh bait to catch crayfish on fishing rods from the shore, it is advisable to load the crayfish traps with products with a scent.

In any case, this way the first crayfish will feel the bait from a distance faster, and then the process of catching them will go faster. In the future, crayfish will crawl into the crayfish trap and come to feast on the individuals already in the crayfish trap.

To explain the next topic, I will draw one more image.

Crayfish bait

Below are the most commonly used baits for crayfish fishing. They can be combined. A good result is achieved by alternating fishermen at the fishing spot with various baits. For example, in one farm there will be fresh meat, and in another there will be rye bread.

Fresh fish or meat

The best option for catching crayfish is fresh meat or fish cut lengthwise and turned inside out. You can also cut it into small pieces and wrap it in cheesecloth.

It has been noted that crayfish prefers bream and roach. But it is not recommended to take pike and perch as bait.

You can add fresh dill leaves to the bait. He does not disdain frog meat or grasshoppers.

Such baits are used from spring to early autumn.

Moldy stuff

Although it is believed that crayfish eat rotten meat, they still prefer fresh meat. Most likely, this stereotype comes from the fact that crayfish concentrate in large numbers while feeding under the corpse of an animal.

When using rotten fish or meat, cut the bait along the back down to the vertebrae. This is done in order to turn the meat inside out.

An alternative to such bait would be fresh bird entrails, which are lightly fried in unrefined sunflower oil. This bait can be used until it is completely rotten.

Rye bread with garlic

Take fresh rye bread. The crust is rubbed with garlic, a hole is made in the crumb, which is then filled with crushed garlic.

When using such bait for a long period, it is prevented from swelling. To do this, the bread is placed in a bag made of nylon fabric or gauze.

You can also make a uniform mass of such bait. To do this, pass all the ingredients through a meat grinder. This bait is used in the warm season. You can use a few mint leaves to complement the garlic.

Peas

In winter , crayfish prefer plant baits.
The most justified and catchy bait is canned peas. The peas are poured into a gauze bag. After which the bag is attached to the clamshell. To enhance the aroma of peas, it is recommended to add ground dry dill or its seeds, passed through a coffee grinder.

An alternative to canned peas is boiled pea porridge, which is moistened with any vegetable flavoring. For example, flax oil.

Cake

Sunflower cake is a universal bait for any time of year. It is better to buy cake made from roasted sunflower oil. In other words, this oil is called unrefined.

If you have a choice in purchasing cake, it is better to buy pressed pancakes. They take longer to liquefy in water and can be used several times in a mesh bag.

Installing a shellfish from the shore

The figure shows a method for installing a crayfish trap for catching crayfish from the shore. For this purpose, a trap with one float is tied to a pole, after which it is installed on the bottom of a reservoir near the coastline.

In order not to measure the distance from the end of the pole to the bottom of the reservoir, it is better to use a foam float when installing the crayfish catcher, which can lift the upper metal hoop of the crayfish catcher.

Then the trap can simply be thrown from the shore in the hope that the float will pull on the sides of the device for catching crayfish.

Without a tension float and an incorrectly measured length of the cord, a crayfish lowered from the bank of a river, lake or pond can simply collapse at the bottom of the reservoir.

You can see the assembly of a homemade trap with a tension float installed in the working position and configured for catching crayfish from the shore in Figure 3. However, the bait is not shown on the stretch here.

Thanks to the lifting force of the float in the water, the sides of the crayfish without side struts will be raised above the bottom near the river bank during the process of catching crayfish.

But the load-bearing capacity of the foam block should be such that it cannot tear the lower metal hoop off the bottom. The crayfish catcher is periodically removed from the water, and the crayfish are sorted on the shore.

Crayfish catcher

A crayfish, unlike a fishing rod, is designed for mass catching of crayfish with one device. True, in both cases you cannot do without bait. One of the homemade crayfish traps is shown in the photograph.

Manufacturing technologies and methods for catching crayfish with crayfish and primitive homemade traps are discussed in detail on the following pages of this topic.

Many forms of crayfish have been invented, but even the same crayfish catcher can have different crayfish designs.

In real conditions of catching crayfish with bait, the mesh (crawlers, crayfish traps) placed in the working position can occupy a horizontal or vertical position in orientation in space.

Horizontal crayfish traps have a couple or more entries for crayfish and require horizontal stretching along the bottom of the reservoir. There may be several baits inside a decent sized device.

The frame rings of the horizontal shell are located perpendicular to the bottom plane. Most of these homemade structures resemble “muzzles” for fish entry.

We have never caught crayfish with horizontal crayfish traps, so in this article I won’t invent anything about installing such crayfish traps.

A vertical crayfish trap, intended for catching crayfish, both from the shore and from a boat, can serve as an ordinary crayfish with a bait tied in the middle of its net.

And, despite the simplicity of the homemade device, this is, perhaps, one of the most successful and convenient crayfish traps for catching crayfish in low-flow sections of rivers.

The peculiarity of all vertical crayfish traps is that they have one crayfish entry neck and the shape of a cone truncated at the top. In the working position, the crayfish traps for catching crayfish are lowered to the bottom of the reservoir with the neck up.

Installing a shell from a boat

The principle of installing a crayfish without side braces from a boat can be understood using another drawn image.

When setting several crayfish traps away from the shore from a boat, two floats will be needed on each of the traps.

The lower float, submerged in the water, is needed to tension the side mesh after installing the crayfish on the bottom of the reservoir.

And the top block of foam shows the place where crayfish are caught with a crayfish catcher installed in the working position. The signal float should be clearly visible to the crayfisher from the boat.

For proper installation, four thin cords of equal length are tied to the upper ring of the shell at an equal distance from each other. Then they are tied with a common knot and tied to a strong common cord, to which a pair of floats is attached - tension and orientation, as shown in the picture.

Next, the crayfisher can install several more crayfish traps from the boat, or start checking the already installed traps for the presence of crayfish in the crayfish.

A few details about catching crayfish from a boat.

Lures for catching crayfish

Types and features of baits for catching crayfish:

The most commonly used bait for such purposes is fish . It is easy to prepare, and it can be caught in the same pond where the crayfish will be caught. Fish for bait should be fresh, but no longer alive. It should give off a strong odor that can attract crayfish. To do this, you can make several cuts along the body of the fish and peel off a few scales. One fish will be enough to catch crayfish.
The bait can also be live . For example, you can catch a snail or a small shell from a pond, which you then place in a trap.
A dead frog is also considered good bait.
Cabbage that has already gone bad often shows good results.
Melon.
Rotten meat.
White bread with garlic can be used as bait for crayfish, since garlic has a distinct smell that will attract crayfish from afar, and the bread will serve as a filler for this bait.

In addition to choosing the bait for catching crayfish, you also need to properly prepare it and attach it to the trap:

The most commonly used bait for such purposes is fish . It is easy to prepare, and it can be caught in the same pond where the crayfish will be caught. Fish for bait should be fresh, but no longer alive. It should give off a strong odor that can attract crayfish. To do this, you can make several cuts along the body of the fish and peel off a few scales. One fish will be enough to catch crayfish.
The bait can also be live . For example, you can catch a snail or a small shell from a pond, which you then place in a trap.
A dead frog is also considered good bait.
Cabbage that has already gone bad often shows good results.
Melon.
Rotten meat.
White bread with garlic can be used as bait for crayfish, since garlic has a distinct smell that will attract crayfish from afar, and the bread will serve as a filler for this bait.

In addition to choosing the bait for catching crayfish, you also need to properly prepare it and attach it to the trap: