Whether you call them crawfish, crayfish, mudbugs, crawdads, crawly bottoms or any of their multiple other names, this small crustacean is a staple in southern cuisine. Here in Missouri, we don’t have the crawdad culture they do in the South, but they are just as delicious and fun to catch.

The first crawdad I ever caught was purely by accident. I was casting in fast, clear water with cut bait, hoping to pluck a few small catfish, and up came a crawfish clinging to the bait. After catching a good mess, I brought them back and had a small crawfish boil. From that point on, it has become somewhat of a tradition.

Fast-forward several years and now I have fun taking the kids to small creeks and flipping rocks, setting traps or catching craws on rod and reel. They have a blast, and at the end of the day, we usually have a healthy supply of protein.

The most fun way to catch crawdads is by rod and reel. Any pole works well—or even a stick and string. Use a bright-colored jig with a lot of material like feathers or cloth for the crawdads to get a good hold. Slapping some stink bait or cat food over the material increases the odds of getting them to pinch many times over.

Where possible, sight fishing is a very effective means of catching them by line and pole. If water clarity allows and you can place your bait directly in front of a crawdad, the process of catching goes much quicker.

If you’re short on time and want to catch a good mess for a crawdad boil, use a trap. A crawdad trap is usually a simple small box with a ramp. Place bait inside the box bait. A cat food can with holes poked in it is effective bait. Leftover meat or bones will usually do the trick as well. Left a few hours or overnight, these little traps work well. If crawdads are there, it usually doesn’t take them long to find the bait.

Although it is a slower process, catching them by hand is a fun. Flipping rocks over very slowly should uncover them. They are incredibly quick and can rocket through the water with a quick flip of their tails. Generally, they continue to flip until they are safe from harm. The best hope is to get them headed to shallow water and then grab them as fast as possible. If you catch 1 out of 5, you’re doing decent.

After all that fun comes the best part of it all. Getting all those crawdads into the kitchen for this incredible delicacy. Here is a great recipe to get you started; go from there to your own taste.

Crawfish Etouffee

Ingredients

3 onions

2 1/2 pounds cooked crawfish

1 stick real butter

salt and pepper + seasonings to taste

parsley

Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet. Dice 3 onions and throw into hot butter with fat from abdomen of crawfish. Add salt, pepper and seasonings. When the onions are translucent, add the tails of the crawfish. Stir until everything is nice and hot. Serve over rice and garnish with parsley. Enjoy.