Crawfish come in different colors, including blue. Red, blue or whatever color, the claws poking out of green, mesh sacks definitely gets your attention. Photo: Ed Lallo/Louisiana Seafood News
by Springfield Lewis/Louisiana Seafood News
Lindsey “Red” Aucoin (right), Peter LaFleur (center) and Joey Schneider are all local Eunice farmers and crawfishermen, as well as longtime friends. Photo: Ed Lallo/Louisiana Seafood News
The red and blue claws poking out of green, mesh sacks definitely get your attention. There are thousands of them, pinching the air and grabbing anything that comes near.
They’re the business end of freshly caught crawfish headed to market. Pound after pound of these Louisiana mudbugs are bagged each season as the taste for them gains new consumers.
Crawfish are big business and getting even bigger. In fact, “the combined annual yield ranges from 120 million to 150 million pounds,” according to the Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board.
The board, created by the state legislature in 1983 to safeguard and expand the industry, estimates the “total economic contribution to the Louisiana economy exceeds $300 million annually” – with 7,000+ people “depending directly or indirectly on the crawfish industry.”
That’s where Lindsey “Red” Aucoin, Joey Schneider and Peter LaFleur come in. They are all local Eunice farmers and crawfishermen, as well as longtime friends.
Growing Northern Markets
“The man I sell to ships mostly to Texas customers,” said Schneider. Some of their crawfish also go to Arkansas, with Little Rock becoming a big market. These markets grew as Louisianans, displaced after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, moved north.
For Schneider and his workers, a day of crawfishing starts at 7 a.m. six days a week, ending around noon. “We finish early so we don’t have to work during the heat of the day.”
Operating a motorized capture boat, Peter LaFleur moves up and down flooded rows of rice, emptying traps. Photo: Ed Lallo/Louisiana Seafood News
Operating a motorized capture boat, a harvester moves up and down flooded rows of rice, emptying traps. The work goes quickly, with 36 acres being harvested in a couple of hours.
The crawfish traps are spaced about 20 feet apart. This spacing gives a harvester enough time to grab one out of the water, dump out the crawfish for bagging, re-bait the trap and put it back in.
“The harvesting of crawfish is efficiency in action,” said Aucoin. “It reminds me of an airport. Timewise, the harvester never stops moving.”
Early in the crawfish season, LaFleur said they were getting about 200 pounds of crawfish off this acreage – a good yield at that time. “Later on, 400 pounds won’t be a problem, but right now we’ve very happy with 200, this being January.”
In past seasons, these 36 acres have yielded as much as 800 pounds of crawfish in a two-hour run, he pointed out. And sometimes, one trap will yield as much as four pounds of crawfish.
Proper Handling of Product
When harvesting crawfish, the name of the game is keep them cool, moist and moving until they are in the hands of the buyer.
“We don’t keep them more than two or three hours,” Schneider said. “Then, we’re done” – delivering them to Riceland Crawfish, a processor down the road from Aucoin’s home.
“The harvesting of crawfish is efficiency in action,” said 86-year old Red Aucoin. “It reminds me of an airport. Timewise, the harvester never stops moving.” Photo: Ed Lallo/Louisiana Seafood News
Once sacked, crawfish can live for about 24 to 36 hours with proper water and handling. At the processing plant, they are sorted into various sizes – the bigger ones commanding better prices. They then are peeled by hand and packaged.
“Crawfish prices are always higher during the early part of the season,” Aucoin explained. “As crawfish harvest numbers increase during the peak months of March and April, prices will drop.”
And while this kind of farming is hard work, there’s something fun about catching crawfish. It brings out the Huckleberry Finn in you.
Or, as Schneider puts it: “As long as I’m catching them, I’m happy.”
So, pull up a sack and join in. Just watch out those craws – they do have pinchers.
Crawfish Tails
Crawfish Cryogenics – Sort Of
There are a number of “old wives tales” about crawfish.
For instance, early in the season – when the crawfish caught are smaller than later in the season – a restaurant will place the bigger ones on top of the plate.
Aubry LaFleur lays traps in a crawfish pond in search of the “monster crawfish”. His dad Peter said the largest one he’s ever seen goes back to his high school days. Photo: Ed Lallo/Louisiana Seafood News
Write that off to presentation.
Rumor has it that crawfish can come back to life after being frozen for several days. Reports are when thawed they are angry pinchers for sure.
Write that one off to crawfish cryogenics.
Monster Crawfish – Still Out There?
For 16 years, Peter LaFleur has farmed the flooded rice fields of St. Landry Parish for crawfish – harvesting hundreds of thousands of them in all sizes.
But, the largest one he’s ever seen goes back to his high school days. A friend, Jesse Brown, brought one that weighed at least a quarter of a pound and stretched out as long as a man’s open hand.
“That was the biggest crawfish I’ve ever seen. It was a monster.”
And where did it end up? Jesse never said.
Who knows? It might be out there somewhere – still growing.
To borrow a famous movie line: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
“As long as I’m catching them, I’m happy,” says Joes Schneider as he stands next to sacks and sacks of mudbugs headed to Riceland Crawfish for processing. Photo: Ed Lallo/Louisiana Seafood News.
Louisiana Crawfish Part 1: To Everything There Is a Season – Especially for Farming Crawfish
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The post Louisiana Crawfish Part 3: From Crawfish Pond to Processor to Pot – A Quick Trip to Expanding Markets appeared first on Louisiana Seafood News.