By Russell A. Graves

With bucket in hand, my boy and I headed down to the duck marsh where we hunt. During the winter, the two acre marsh, which was created by my brother out of a flat bottomland hayfield that lies next to a creek, floods with about a foot of water and creates a wetland habitat that attracts ducks on a daily basis.  After duck season, he drains the marsh so moist soil grasses and forbs will grow and provide food for next season’s ducks.
When the weather warms and the water drains away, the flat marsh bottom (made from a thick clay gumbo mud for which the blackland prairies are famous) becomes a popular destination for scores of crawdads.

Mud chimneys are everywhere. At each place a chimney stands, a crawdad carefully dug a vertical burrow that fills with water and then capped the opening with the spoils from its labor: chunks of stacked mud. We find a big chimney and carefully pluck it apart from the mud. In doing so, we expose a wide and nearly symmetrical hole that plunges deep into the marsh’s basin. It’s so deep, I can’t even see a shiny disk of water down in the hole.

However, the dig is fresh so we know a crawdad lurks beneath. So with bacon tied to a string harvested from the end of a feed sack, my boy lowers the bait into the hole and waits for a tug. He doesn’t have to wait long.

Crawfish, crayfish or crawdad?
In the eastern United States, however, they are commonly called crayfish. Whatever you call them, crawdads are a species of freshwater crustaceans that live in water that does not completely freeze. As bottom dwellers, they feed off of live animals, carrion, and plant materials. They are an old species, and fossil records document their existence for at least 30 million years.

To read more pick up a copy of the July 2017 NTFR issue. To subscribe call 940-872-5922.