It was the middle of January, and the air temps were hovering right around 20 degrees along the Milwaukee shores of Lake Michigan. The brown trout weren’t cooperating—or even around —so I started casting a 3-inch plastic crawfish bait. 

I’m a smallmouth junkie, and over the last 20 years, Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan harbors have developed into a legitimate smallmouth fishery. These harbors are not yet the level of the legendary waters of Sturgeon Bay or Door County, but smallies are now common in our coastal city harbors. Chicago’s harbor has become a haven for not only numbers but some very large smallmouths.

Back to my chilly morning. With trout being slow that day and me being pretty good at coaxing very-cold-water smallies, I started crawling small craws along the seawall and around manmade riprap shorelines. 

In the next hour, I was able to get two smallmouths of 16 and 17 inches. This isn’t setting the world on fire for smallmouth fishing by any means, but a moral victory. Catching a couple smallmouths in open water, a few degrees above freezing, in downtown Milwaukee, is snatching a precious, tiny victory from the icy-cold jaws of Old Man Winter. But that’s not the story…

As winter and early spring progressed, I continued to pursue these winter smallies. Again, as a smallie junkie, the chance at getting even one or two in a two-hour morning, shore fishing expedition, in the middle of the season where the rest of the state is walking on hard water, is a victory. 

I continued to try other lures, but that 3-inch craw was Mr. Consistent. One day, I got the tell-tale thump, set the hook and knew it was a good one. It stayed deep and even tore off some line. I’m thinking this could be a 21-incher. But now it’s fighting too long. So, I finally got it to where I could get a look at it… a big steelhead… on the crawfish! Crazy, right?

The next day, a nice smallie, then another thump, another battle, and this time a 12-pound brown. This continued all winter into March. Steelhead, browns, smallmouths, and pike all eating crawfish baits. As this all unfolded, I thought to myself every week, this article is writing itself.

So, there were a few things that were shocking. The midwinter smallmouth was one. The biggest was the attraction of the salmonids to a crawfish. This wasn’t a freak accident. There was a consistency to the pattern, and it most often succeeded when the normal crankbait/jerkbait/spoon bite was dead. After shore fishing Lake Michigan for 51 years, there were many questions in my head that needed answering. I needed to do some studying.

It’s often been said that if you want to know the owl, you must first understand the mouse. In my case, I needed a master class on the crawfish. They hibernate, go dormant, are nowhere to be found in winter, right?

This intrigued me enough that I dove deep into the world of crawfish. I credit a lot of my craw education to Dr. Zachary Loughman, Professor of biology and chair of the Orgamismal Biology, Ecology and Zoo Science at West Liberty University in West Virginia. I dove into the teachings of “Dr. Crawfish!” 

Without turning this into a crawfish biology class term paper, I’ll hit the points that mean something to us fishermen in this topic. 

Do crawfish hibernate? No. Crawfish “estivate.” This means that they can slow down their metabolism and activity levels to conserve energy during cold-water periods. But this also means if there is a slight warm up or maybe sun is beating on a shoreline where they are burrowed, they will become totally active all winter long!

Along Lake Michigan, in the middle of winter, I find crawfish pinchers left all over snow-covered docks. It puzzled me until I started to put this all together. On warm days in winter, seagulls will prowl the rocky rubble shorelines and grab these sunning craws.

Although craws aren’t crawling all over the bottom in winter like they are in summer, they are there. It’s not like casting a frog in January. That isn’t possible and would look unnatural to a fish. Crawfish, on the other hand, are around all season long. And fish know it’s an easy protein snack when they spot one. 

I also learned how a crawfish reacts when confronted by danger. When they are spooked, they will jump straight up, land, and then scoot backwards in the fashion we are accustomed to fishing a crawfish bait. They walk around and feed walking forward, but when in danger, their escape speed is in reverse! After learning this, I now fish any crawfish imitation exactly like Dr. Loughman described their danger response. 

I was introduced to “Crackin’ a Tube” by a Mark Zona video many years ago (Search “Tube Crackin’ for Bass, Zona Show Dirt, Ep.#1.). It works. It’s deadly for tubes, craws, bass jigs, etc., but I could never understand why. Now I know. It’s replicating this crawfish danger reaction move. Here in Wisconsin, I don’t “crack” as aggressively as Zona does in that video, but I have cracked a craw now for walleyes, bass, pike, muskies, perch, crappies, brown trout, and steelhead. “Crackin’” is shaking a bait on the bottom on slack line. It’s a perfect crawfish presentation.

Let’s talk crawfish size. I’ll cut to the chase. The Dr.’s studies have showed that the biggest portion of the crawdad population, and the size most eaten, is 2 to 3 inches. The big bugs are just too big of a fight, and some fish won’t even mess with them. They have watched these big rusty craws, and they don’t even try to hide like smaller craws, basically because they know most things won’t mess with them. So, when choosing a craw plastic, look for them 3 inches or smaller. I like the ones with paddles for pinchers, rather than more realistic pinchers. The fish will just peck off the pinchers if they aren’t closely tied into the body structure of the craw. 

There are so many lessons I am trying to share in this crawfish study.

Lesson #1: Crawfish are always a food source here in Wisconsin. They don’t go dormant. On any given day, they can become active, and fish know they are an easy meal. Any time there is open water, a crawfish is an option.

Lesson #2: Great Lakes browns and steelhead will eat a craw and are a great shore fishing option. When the baitfish aren’t around and the gobies have moved offshore, try a craw. Fish them a foot or two parallel to the edge of a seawall or at the base of a rubble shoreline. I have been using either a 1/8- or 1/4-ounce jig head and 2.5- to 3-inch craws. Root Beer with blue flake or Watermelon Candy have both been consistent producers. Almost every craw I find along Lake Michigan shorelines has some blue in it. 

Lesson #3: Everything eats crawfish. There are very few food sources available to gamefish that are consistently an option for them all season long. The crawfish is one of them whether it is a lake, river, or stream. 

I have always said that fishing is “recreational science.” This is a perfect example. After more than a half a century of fishing, I learned and discovered a new twist to the diet of bass, pike, muskies, walleyes, crappies, and even Lake Michigan browns and steelhead. 

Don’t ever give up on the power of a crawfish. When baitfish aren’t around, craws are! I’ll see you pitching craws on your favorite lake this fall, winter and summer.