Boot Scootin’ Crawdads
Although I have spent all my married life in the country, when I was growing up my family lived close to town in a subdivision. I have two sisters, and it’s very safe to say that none of us were very in-tune with nature, but of the three of us I considered myself the tomboy of the bunch.
When I began to date my husband, Greg, I found out rather quickly that he was all about anything and everything that had to do with the outdoors. But, he must have seen that tomboy side of me and thought I’d enjoy all of his outdoor adventures as much as he did – enjoy is sometimes hardly the word I would use.
I’m really not that much of a tomboy…I itch all over at the mere thought of any sort of bug and I’m totally finicky about bathroom facilities – porta potties are totally OUT!
This is an adventure that took place on one beautiful spring day after school when Greg wanted to take me crawdad fishing. I didn’t know what a crawdad was, but I agreed to go. We drove to a creek close to where he lived, and parked along the dirt road that led to the water’s edge. We got out of the car and walked down near the water – now I’m noticing that he doesn’t have any equipment – no fishing pole and no bait – apparently, no equipment is necessary for crawdad fishing.
There on dry land beside the water, Greg took off his boots and socks and rolled up his pant legs – this is getting weirder by the minute, what kind of fishing is this? No fishing pole, no bait and bare feet!?
Crawdad fishing in no way resembled any fishing I’d ever seen. The elusive little creatures live under rocks, so to find them you teeter out into the water in your bare feet, try to keep your balance on wobbly rocks, spy a good-looking rock (think like a crawdad…which rock looks like a good home?), wait until the water clears (walking in the water causes it to be wavy and hard to see into the water), then ever-so-slowly pick up the rock. Turning up the rock creates a cloud of sand and dirt making the water murky so, again there is a waiting period for the water to clear. If one of the crafty little hermits happens to be under the rock you have to grab for it very quickly…this is a tricky job as the little critters have pinchers that are gyrating in all directions in an effort to clamp down on whatever has ahold of them and free themselves.
Just watching this slow and tedious process almost put me to sleep; by contrast Greg was having the time of his life. I did get excited though when he caught one and brought it over for me to see, up close and personal. He held it out for me to take it –no way was I going to hold a thing that wanted a piece of my flesh! So, we had a dilemma – what to do with it – we had no bucket, but we had a boot.
Next thing I knew he threw the mad little creature beside me, and said for me to pick it up and put it in his boot…NOT A CHANCE!
Since there wasn’t a Chinaman’s chance that I was going to pick it up, I began to ponder another way to get it into the boot. I decided, cleverly I thought, to put the boot on it’s side directly in front of the crawdad and let it crawl inside. I found out rather quickly that they are smart, and have no desire to be captured – as soon as I placed the boot in front of it, it turned and went in the other direction – always boot scootin’ back toward the water! I could see this was not a productive method, but it was the only plan I had.
While I was trying to get #1 corralled into the boot, #2 comes – PLOP – beside me…now I have two that I’m trying to herd into the boot. It was a mad scramble – me running to get in front of them with the boot and them scurrying off in the direction of the water – good gracious…whew! they must have little built-in water sensors!
Soon more came plopping around me, I had been outwitted and was exhausted from all of my futile attempts to capture the little critters; I stood and watched as all of them were fast making their way back into the water … by this time I was full of dread.
I watched as Greg continued tirelessly on his mission – lucky for me he had been so intent on his task in the water that he was paying no attention to my escapades on the land.
But, after he’d been so busy – and, I must say he had been very successful – he stopped briefly to ask “how many do we have?”….this was the question I had been dreading. I walked over to the boot, looked inside – hoping by some miracle that at least one had wandered inside – no such luck! I answered meekly, “zero”. Needless to say he was not a happy camper!
We began a question and answer drill…he asked “where are all the ones I caught?” to which I muttered “they just wandered back into the water”, “you were supposed to put them in the boot”, “I was afraid to pick them up, I didn’t want to get pinched”, “they won’t pinch you if you hold them right”….hold them right?…he had to be kidding…I wasn’t going to hold them period!
I don’t think he believed me about none being in the boot because he trudged out of the water, picked up the boot, turned it upside down and shook it hard, but nothing came out (no surprise to me!).
As intent as he was in getting enough crawdads to cook, he tromped back into the water and continued on his mission, but this time with a new plan… each time he found one and caught it he would walk to the edge of the water where I was standing with the boot, drop it in, and I’d put his sock over the top to prevent its escape…now, this was a plan I liked! The process was even slower than before, but much more productive.
This was a day of firsts for me – seeing a crawdad for the first time, first time fishing for crawdads, and the first time to eat a crawdad – I have to say eating them was the best part, they were crunchy, buttery little tidbits, and to my surprise, I really liked them even though they were quite a bit of trouble (in more ways than one).
Our kids grew up crawdad fishing, and are experts in catching and cooking them – just like their dad. As for me, I’ll hunt the little hermits, but I’m still afraid to pick them up…although I’ve found that a minnow net does the job quite nicely.
