Crayfish a threat?
In the fishing world there is often a monster lurking around the corner. Something that is going to come along and ruin it for us all.Over the last few decades we've had the anti bloods sports brigade threatening us. We had the lead shot ban to get over and we were all going to see our fish stocks eaten by shoals of zander. According to the experts these fish were going to spread like wildfire, they would wipe out all our fisheries and if we wanted to carry on fishing we'd all have to buy some piker's tackle because there would be nothing else left to fish for.
Now we have another threat, the signal crayfish. It came from North America in the 1970s and is set to wipe out our own crayfish and anything else it can find to eat including our fish. During last summer I caught a crayfish a nice little fellow he was too. It took a single grain jolly green giant on a number 14, so it must've been hungry. Here is picture I took of him before I put him back.
I am assuming it is a signal crayfish because of the red claw and it was a big specimen. In the olden days they reckoned our native cray fish were a good bait for chub. Well no chub was going to get it gums around this little beast I can tell you.
Whether or not the crayfish does as much damage as the doom and gloom Johnnies predict is left to be seen.
I can only go back to the threat of the dreaded zander. That was thirty odd years ago and I still haven't caught one. By the way if anybody is having trouble with signal crayfish let me know. There's a company in Oxford who are looking to find supplies. They will come and net your pool and get rid of most of them for you. Apparently signal crayfish are good to eat and this company supplies a number of restaurants with them. Strange old world ain't it, some folk will put anything in their mouths.
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