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 though I think you'll be OK carrying them from the River to the cook pot.

Some friends of mine's place back's out onto a small river. We catch them there...some big 'uns. If you're gonna do it its advisable to let them sit around in clean water for a bit (24 hrs) to flush out. So you might have to break the law a little bit to get your munch on.