Crawdad Fishing with a Pole

I have gone crawdad fishing with several times. When done properly, enough crawdads can be caught for dinner.

Fishing Pole

You will need to use a fishing pole made for crappie or panfish catching. These types of fishing poles are flexible at the tip and have an action that helps with noticing when fish or crawdads are on the hook.

The best way to tie the hooks onto the line is using the clinch knot. My husband taught me this knot. The hooks don't break off as often when fish are hooked.

Crawdad Rigging on the Fishing Pole

You will need one fishing pole rigged with a size four treble fishing hook or small catfish hook. A bopper can be added to the rigging. The bopper will help when knowing when the crawdads latch onto the bait.

Crawdad Fishing Bait

You will need actual bait over lures when crawdad fishing. I know turkey or beef liver works the best. Gizzards will work as well, but you will need them to have blood on them in order for them to work. Any of these three items can be bought in a grocery store most often in the meat freezer section.

Shad guts will work too. The downside to using this type of bait for crawdad fishing is it is far more expensive than liver and gizzards. Shad guts are only bought at bait stores around Kansas.

Attaching the Bait to the Hooks

Weave a medium sized hunk of the bait onto the hook the same way you would for catching catfish. This keeps the bait on the hook.

A little trick I was taught for the bait. Tie a strand of fishing line onto the eye of the hook and wrap it down and back up leaving some of the bait poking out. Tie off the other end of the line in the eye of the hook. Doing this keeps the crawdads from taking the bait and clinching onto the bait so you can catch them.

Crawdad Fishing

Now that you have the pole rigged and baited, let enough of the line off the reel into the water where the crawdads are hanging out. Watch until there are enough to pull the hook out of the water. Carefully shake the crawdads into a bucket of water. I use a five-gallon bucket I have dipped into the lake for holding the crawdads.

Be sure to have a bucket with a lid so you can leave the crawdads in the water until you get home. This will keep them alive and fresh longer.