Food

I've been looking into crayfish catching/trapping recently as 1) I like the idea of catching/killing my own food, and 2) they are an aggressive pest that is killing off indigenous species and destroying the banks of our rivers and canals, and 3) they are tasty.

To be legal you have to have a license to trap them, which is granted by the Environment Agency (EA). If you're using traps then you'll need to make sure they meet certain criteria (otter and water vole proof for one), and you'll want to check them at least once every 24 hours as they will happily eat each other if there is no other food about.

You also have to be quite specific on the license application about where you'll be fishing and what type of/how many traps you'll be using. The reason for this is that the invasive Red Signal crayfish carry a "crayfish plague" that they are immune to but kills the native crayfish. So you have to be careful to ensure you minimise the risk of contaminating clean waterways with the "plague".

At the end of your license period you are required to fill out a form to inform the EA of the numbers you've been catching.

It's also illegal to keep live crayfish thought I think you'll be OK carrying them from the River to the cook pot.

This is interesting. I'd be totally into doing pop up crawfish boils though, sounds like a bloody great idea.

Gumbo last night was a roaring success, I just did Andouille and Chicken, really simple once the prep is done.

Cajun Rub for the chicken and then added to pot was also delicious and was something along the lines of..

4TBSP Paprika
1TBSP Smoked Paprika
1TBSP Garlic Powder
2TSP Thyme
2TSP Onion Powder
2TSP Salt
1/2TSP Cayenne
1.5TSP Oregano
2TSP Black Pepper

I also added 1 Tbsp of Filé about 20 minutes before the end. Results aren't particularly pretty, but fuck me it was tasty.