Crayfish Tails

[Dave Burr]

T.O.B. hits the nail on the head. I was poised to type those very words this morning but resisted however, I can come to no other decision. But the tails I've got in the freezer can stay there for now as my autumn perch fishing never got off the ground. They will probably be mixed into some prebait to attract any one of several species at some stage well I'm not going to waste them am I. Which begs the question M'Lord, is 'prebait' bait?

Apparently its also illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament and pregnant woman can allegedly relieve themselves anywhere they wish including in a policeman's helmet although that may just be internet guff.

[Santiago]

I think all those laws are real! Apparently there's one that says all men over a certain age have to practice the long bow every Sunday morning for 2 hours, or something like that. I think it might have been repealed a few years ago.

[Dave Burr]

In Hereford we are allowed to kill the Welsh that have come across the boarder as long as we use a long bow and do it on Sunday morning in the Cathedral grounds. Oddly enough, when I moved over here the only item left in the house was in the rafters of the garage - a long bow.

It is also a rite I've been quite tempted to use

[Beryl]

Frankly, apart from artificial fllies in the summer months, which taste of nothing and really don't look much like the real thing, it's good to get back to rational fishing....

[Olly]

Strangely it is a newish Law regarding crayfish . Not one when I was a kid 60 years ago!

Caught them in the Loddon and the Mole in the late 50's by lifting rocks in Cobham weirpool and being nipped when I was not careful!

These were of course the White Clawed variety - long since extinct.

[Santiago]

The Marshall Cavendish Fisherman's Handbook (1978) actually recommends them as bait. But this was before their American cousins arrived; some time after which the law was introduced as an attempt to stop the spread of the plague because the powers that be realised that the natives were under threat from plague, loss of habitat, and too many being caught for bait. But it was too little too late, and nobody at the time realised just how serious a threat the foreign crayfish posed. If they ever had a clue, I guess they wouldn't have allowed them to be farmed willy nilly next to rivers, or at all for that matter.

Nowadays, however, if a river contains red clawed crayfish one can guarantee that it doesn't contain natives, and if it does then it's only a matter of time before they disappear. Apparently, even waterfalls are no longer considered an adequate barrier from invasion.

Even relatively new laws can be soon out dated. Realistically, the EA are losing the battle, and if they don't alter their strategy soon then for the sake of one species (our native crayfish) they are possibly risking the extinction of several of our native fish from our rivers. Some fish might be getting bigger by eating red claw juveniles, but at the same time fish recruitment from eggs is very low, and this in part is mainly due to egg predation by crayfish. The affect they're having may well be much worse than otters, cormorants, etc. and low level pollution, all combined. But of course I ' m just guessing at that, all the same I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

[CWK]

Waitrose also stock precooked , prepacked crayfish tails .... For human consumption only though!!,