The Cajun life of Victor Vautrot: Crawfishing 2014! The Vautrot crawfish farm!

I haven't had as much time to devote to crawfishing in 2014 as I did in previous years; however, I did manage to set out a lot of traps in my ponds on the property. I baited them with some artificial bait, and they did really well when the weather warmed up. This year, the Deep South has had some very, very unseasonably cold weather. It snowed 3 times in most of Louisiana this year; and in parts of North Louisiana, it snowed 4 times. This occurred in January and February 2014.

Anyway, when it warmed up, the crawfish started coming out in the ponds. In one of the pictures below, you'll see one of the many uninvited/unintended guests: a Snake. I routinely catch a cornucopia of serpents: Water Moccasins (a.k.a. "Cotton Mouth") and Water Snakes. When it comes to the former snake, I immediately dispatch its life (kill it!). Cut-up snake meat makes great crawfish bait. After I kill a snake, I cut it up with a machete into several 4 inch long pieces. Each of those pieces can easily go inside your crawfish trap for bait. The snakes enter into the traps in search of eating the entrapped crawfish. The snake will eat some of them, but it's belly will be too big afterwards to allow it to escape out. After I kill the Water Moccasin and cut it up for crawfish bait: the former pond predator becomes the new meal for the crawfish. Water Moccasins ("Cottonmouths") are very plentiful in wetland areas; and, they can seriously hurt your dogs. Many of my hunting dogs have been bitten on their faces, noses, necks, shoulders and feet by Water Moccasins. None of my dogs ever died afterwards, but they sure looked miserable and swollen!

In the picture below, I caught a harmless, non-venomous Water Snake. I let them live all the time, as they keep the rodent population down in the fields. I actually reached inside the trap and had to pull the trapped snake out of the mesh wiring backwards. It did not even try to bite me; Water Snakes are pretty docile and non-aggressive. I pulled him out of the trap and placed him back in the water. He made a quick escape!

I took the crawfish that I caught in these pictures back home (walking distance), and purged them with salty water for several hours. I took them inside my house and boiled them in a large pot on the stove. They were delicious!

My Toyota Tundra Platinum Edition.
On the levee next to some of my crawfish ponds.
20 crawfish traps and a sac of bait.

My Golden Retriever "Dixie Belle".
This is her 3rd crawfish season!
She's a pro and ready to go in the water with me.
My dogs love following me in the crawfish ponds.