Crawfish Season Might See Slight Delay Due To Cold Snap
Crawfish season in Louisiana may be slightly delayed this year thanks to last week’s arctic blast, but the good news is that they did survive. Dr. Greg Lutz with the LSU Ag-Center says when it gets extremely cold, crawfish just sit there and can’t move even if they wanted to.
"They're gonna keep sitting there until that water warms up," said Lutz. "That has an impact on our harvest because we can't catch those crawfish if they don't cooperate by walking into the traps."
Lutz says crawfish will be available for Mardi Gras, just not as plentiful and will probably be a little more expensive than normal. He says when the crawfish aren’t moving, it also means they aren’t eating and getting bigger; but in terms of size, farmers had some luck ahead of the cold snaps.
"We had some good growing conditions to this point," said Lutz. "So I don't think we'll see a big reduction in the average size right now."
Lutz says what they are hoping for now is a long stretch of sunny, mild days so that the water in the ponds warms up.
"And those crawfish will spring back into action pretty quickly," said Lutz.