The Elusive Red Crawdad

Green crawdads were definitely more common and thus were caught more often. To catch a red crawdad was unusual. The word catch should be explained. As mentioned in an earlier post, the smashed bluegill would be put on a hook and lowered into the water under the Little Bridge. After a few minutes we would very slowly pull the line up and several crawdads would be holding onto the bluegill with their large pinchers while eating the fish's flesh. Some would drop off as we got the bluegill near the surface, but it was easy to catch two or three or four crawdads at a time. If we had one, we would slip a coffee can under the bluegill as we brought it out of the water. We did not have a net and the crawdads could have dropped through the holes anyway.