Fantastic Crawfishing in August

In August the traditional Swedish Crawfishing season starts in Sweden.
Here some memories from earlier adventures in Fyrväpplingen with family and friends.

You get your numbers/locations in the lake were u are allowed to put out 10 cages which u add some fish bait in. The crawfish are attracted to smelly bait like white fish in this case.

We get out around 4-5 in the afternoon . Preparing the cages and dropping them at different locations with different depth from 0,5 meter up to 3-4 meters to the bottom just to try out where they might be.

Normally you are supposed to wait a few hours before u check the cages but u are only allowed to fish until midnight at this place so you don´t want to waste time at any bad spots.

After 2 hours at the latest u start checking the cages and hopefully u have some nice crawfish in them. When u find empty cages you move them to other hopefully more attractive spots.

We always start up a nice fire burning all evening. Having some good food and something to drink. A few spicy hotdogs over the fire is always nice.

While the cages are out in the lake we all like to look for Crawfish along the lake shore.
When the darkness starts setting in around 7-8 The crawfish starts to be more active in the water looking for food along the shore . Preferably u wear a good headlamp so that u can use your hands freely when u look in the water for them. You use a fishing line with a hook or similar with some added fish bate or mayby a net.
If there are any nearby they soon start coming and eating the fish. Then u try to bring them in. That´s a big sport as many of them get scared and disappears fast. Some are not that lucky though.

We usually checking and moving around the cages 4-5 times during the evening.
Some are empty and sometimes u get 5-10 in one cage. Then u are very excited  just to find the next 5 cages empty. Always looking forward to this day every year. So funny and exciting even though it´s a lot of job also and a lot of bad smelling fish bate to handle . But it´s worth it for sure.

After a good evening we hopefully have about 150-200 Crawfishes at the the allowed size.
They crawl around in a big plastic box.
When we get home they stay in the box over night while we take a few hours sleep .

The next day we cook the poor creatures alive . But it´s a quick procedure though.
We boil hot water mixed with salt , sugar , beer and Crown dill .
When the water bubbles u drop in 4-5 Crawfish in it. They die directly and turns red .
You remove them and wait for the water to start boiling again. Then u do the same procedure again.
After a while u need a new water mix . Let´s say after 50 Crawfishes.
Because the dill starts giving some bad taste when boiling to long.

Then u add the ready cooked Crawfishes in some kind of container. We use a big plastic box.
You poor over the saltwater  so it covers the Crawfish. Adding som extra fresh dill on top.
Then u let it cool down over the day.
In the evening we have our friends and family gathered for a nice Crawfish party " Kräftskiva".

The crawfish is now removed from the water and put on some serving plates.
The kids grabbing the biggest very quickly. You are lucky if u get one big to try yourself.
The tails and the claws are the parts most eat. Some like to eat some other stuff called "Smöret".
Some yellow goo from the stomach.

To the crawfish we eat pie . Cheese pie and smoked ham pie. The cheese is a Swedish delicacy called "Västerbottens ost" . A little bit like the Italian Parmesan cheese. A wonderful pie and cheese.

We drink beer and the famous Swedish snaps. A lot of different brands and herb tastes.
It should be cold and we always sing a Snaps song before we drink it. " Helan går " The famous song.
The kids drink soda though but can join singing .

Hopefully the party goes on for a few hours after midnight if everything works out as it supposed to do.


Skål!