Day 4 started early as we were going to visit a crawfish farm, and the crawfish are harvested before 10am. We signed up in the group which was to leave the campground at 6am, which put us to the farm about 7:30am.
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Driving along a levee in the fields -- the crawfish pond is on the left, and rice field on the left. The two "crops" are symbiotic - the crops are rotated from one field to the next - the cut rice provides a great habitat for the crawfish, and the mud of the crawfish pond provides a rich environment for the rice.
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The farmer told us that when the pond is drained, it must be "smoothed" as the wheel of the crawfish harvesting boat will have carved a groove in the base of the pond. The high part of the mud must be moved while it is still wet because once it dries, it is like cement.
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Crawfish harvesting boat coming - the operator was emptying those traps as he came across the pond.
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Boat coming up onto the levee...
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... crossing the levee to the next pond. The boat has wheels and tires underneath it, and the large wheel on the back that propels and steers it.
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Three bags of crawfish from the first pond.
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Fisherman backing the boat out after we had boarded.
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Carl was standing near the middle of the boat, holding on to be sure that neither he nor his phone became crawfish bait!
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Crawfish in the tray
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Having picked up a trap...
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... dumping the trap into the tray.
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Re-baiting the trap with (smelly) fish and artificial bait
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Encouraging the crawfish in the tray to go into the bags hanging down from the sides
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Preparing to re-deploy the baited trap
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Another trap being dumped - note the spike sticking up - when he redeploys the trap, that spike gets pressed down into the mud to keep the trap upright and in place. The pond is not very deep.
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There are indentations on the sides of the traps with holes into the trap. The crawfish crawl backwards into the indentations, enter via the holes, and then cannot get out.
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Re-deploying a baited trap as we return to the side of the pond where the next group of tourists (folks from our RV festival) was waiting to get on!
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Boat up on the edge for us to get off
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Transferring across the levee to the next pond to allow the next group to get on and the next pond to be harvested
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It was fascinating to watch the process! I put together videos from the trip into a YouTube video which can be found here: https://youtu.be/KZCbTnq2uj8
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