Crawfishin’ Fever

The Misadventures of P.T. and Bob

Crawfishin’ Fever

(or, “Bob, it’s not fish bait… it’s food!”)

        Boiling pot, gas burner, corn, potatoes, carrots, onions, hot dogs, secret ingredients from down at the corner store… the only thing missing is about 50 pounds of fat, juicy crawfish. Come March, there’s just about nothing I rather pig out on then some hot, boiled crawfish. In fact, one of my favorite thinks about the Superbowl is that the end of football season usually means crawfish season is close.

There I was, just sitting in the kitchen thinking about crawfish when I heard the most awfullest, stomach-sinking sound in the world – Bob, knocking at my door.
“Hey, P.T.! Whatcha doing?”
“Not too much, Bob. Just sitting here thinking about boiling up some mudbugs, but you know, it’s just a little too early yet to get the good ones, and man I hate to pay 99 cents a pound,” I said. “Say, you want to go with me next week and catch some?”
“I don’t know, P.T.,” Bob said. “I still don’t see how you can eat fish bait.”

It was mystifying to me, too. How could anyone live in south Louisiana for four years and still not like to eat crawfish? But Bob, well, he used to use live mudbugs for fish bait up north and never heard of eating ’em until he moved down here. Of course, the first time I took him out to help me catch some didn’t help either…

It wasn’t long after Bob and Shirley moved in when I first asked him to go crawfishin’ with me. Now, being from the north and sort of mistrustful of everything in the south, Bob was a little hesitant at first but I wore him down (Velma made me do it.). And, of course, it was crawfishin’ time and Bob said he hadn’t done that since he was a kid.

Well, the next Friday night I shang-haied bob and we loaded my pickup with most of the essentials – a couple of rakes, two buckets, three big ice chests and four of my patented crawfish traps. Now Bob, well he got this sort of puzzled look on his face when I had him put all that stuff in my truck, but he didn’t say anything. But when he loaded his fishing pole and tacklebox, I had to ask what that was for since I’d never seen anyone catch crawfish on a rod and reel.

“Well,” Bob said, “I figure if we’re going to catch some crawfish, then we might as well do some fishing, too.”
Now I was impressed. I hadn’t even thought about that. It wouldn’t take that long to fill two ice chests with mudbugs and there was at least one spot nearby where we could drop a line. “Good idea,” I said as I went back inside for my rod.

The next morning I got bob up about o’dark-thirty and tucked him into the passenger side seatbelt. We then headed up I-10 towards that long stretch of swampland between the Bonnet Carre Spillway and Gonzales – you know where I mean. Well, we come cruising off the spillway and I start looking for a likely spot when I hear my tires crunching something on the road. I slammed on my brakes and skidded to a rubber-burning stop on the shoulder and jumped out. Bob, who was laying on top of the dashboard, climbed down and stumbled out.

“What the $%#^&% did you stop like that for?” he yelled.
“Crawfish. Grab the buckets and the ice chest and come over here.”
Well, he followed me back up the road a couple of feet and just stood there as I started grabbing mudbugs and throwing ’em into the chest. I guess he just wasn’t awake yet or something, so I yelled at him to get him started picking up crawfish.

Let me tell you, I have never seen a grown man so careful about a little ol’ mudbug. You’d thought he’d never caught crawfish before the way he bent over and tried to pick one up.

The first thing Bob would do was find one that didn’t look too aggressive and then he’d reach down with his thumb and one finger and start to pick it up. But he’d stop about three inches above it like he was trying to figure out how to pick one up without getting snipped. I tell you, it sort of reminded me of the bull riding I saw on cable tv one night – Bob was the rodeo clown and the crawfish was the bull – both trying to figure out just what the other one was gonna do. I woulda laughed, except I was too busy scooping the critters up with my bucket and dumping them into the ice chest.

Well we must have missed the main part of the crawfish run across the interstate, because by the time I had that first ice chest full, there were no more to be picked up. I looked over at Bob and he had about a dozen small – I mean real small – ones in his bucket.
“Bob, you couldn’t find any bigger ones than those?” I asked.
“I prefer the small ones,” he replied
I couldn’t understand that one.

Anyway, we drove a little further down the road and by this time the sun was starting to come up and we could see just what was in the water. So I pulled over to the side again and got out.

“Now, this time we’re going to use some of my pawpaw’s crawfish baskets,” I explained to Bob. These baskets were special made by my pawpaw out of chicken wire and they really don’t look much like baskets, but they do work to catch crawfish under certain conditions.

The basket has a square bottom and each of the sides is squashed inward so the mudbugs can crawl up and fall inside where we tied a chicken neck or two. This traps the critters because they can’t easily crawl back out. We’d set the basket on the bottom of the swamp in about a foot and a half of water and then just check it out every now and then to see what we had collected. Of course, you had to be careful when you dumped it, just in case something you don’t want has crawled inside.

Well, I pulled on my old Chalmette sneakers and told Bob to get his on and follow me. I then grabbed four baskets and went about setting them out. Man, the crawfishin’ was good. As soon as I dropped the last basket, I went back to the first one it and it was loaded with mudbugs – must of had five or six trapped inside of it. I then went back and checked the other three and they each had some, too.

Bob finally made it out to where I was with his empty bucket and two more baskets, and wearing bright orange chest waders. He asked me what he was supposed to do, so I showed him where to set his baskets and then had him go around and dump mine. After his second trip around, he emptied his bucket into the ice chest and looked at me sort of puzzled.
“That’s a lot of crawfish” he said. “Don’t we have enough yet?”
“Well, that’s almost enough for me and Velma, but I figure we need about the same amount for the kids and you and Shirley,” I said.
“Man, that’s a lot of fishing,” Bob said. “I thought we were just getting enough for the two of use.”
“Nah! We gotta get enough for everybody or else I’ll have to go buy some.”

Well, we started running the basked and everything was going just fine until Bob decided to move one that wasn’t doing any good a little closer to this old rotten tree. That’s when he took the wrong step and tripped over a rood. Bob tried to keep his balance but lost that battle and fell face first in the water. I ran over to him and rolled him over so I could help him up.

Well, let me tell you, as soon as I got him on his back, Bob jumped up completely out of the water and started running for the truck. I ran over and grabbed the ice chest and followed him. When I got there, Bob was screaming more curse words than I thought he knew while he was jumping up and down and trying to get the waders off. He finally got ’em unhooked and sat down and kicked until he was completely out of those waders. Then he starting rolling around on the ground and grabbing his legs and backside and just screaming.
“Oh, P.T.! Man, I fell into something and they’re biting me. Get ’em off! Get ’em off of me!”

So I walked over and picked up his waders to see just what the problem was and wouldn’t you know it, those things were just loaded with crawfish. Bob must have fallen right where those mudbugs were hiding and the water just washed them into his waders. I guess them crawdaddies thought a free meal had stumbled into ’em.

“Damn, Bob, I’d never thought about catching crawfish like that,” I said.
Well, Bob had had enough and just looked at me and said, “Let’s go home, P.T.”

So we drove home.

You know, the one think I couldn’t figure out later though was why Bob wouldn’t eat any crawfish. I mean, there we were, pinching tails and sucking heads and Bob wouldn’t even eat a piece of corn. He just sat there mumbling something about not wanting to eat anything that would eat him.

© 1996, Joe Gibson