Basingstoke Canal Angling Association

Update June 2005

Update Nov. 2004

Update Aug 2004

Club Appeal

The Crays - A Crustacean Plague

As most of you will be aware we now have a serious crayfish problem along virtually the whole of the Basingstoke Canal. The Aldershot and Mytchett areas appear to the worst areas affected but crays are regularly caught in all other areas. The species affecting the Basingstoke Canal and many other southern waterways is the American Signal Crayfish, which was bought over to this country for breeding as a food source. Illegal stockings of crayfish into other waters have meant a rapid increase in their numbers over the past few years and now they have reached plague proportions in many venues.

The actual affect the crayfish have on fish populations is unknown but down to personal observations I would say they have little impact on fish numbers. This view is based on the prolific numbers of fry, which are evident on the canal. However they must have an impact on fishes behaviour, as they will be unable to feed adequately if the bottom is seething with crayfish.

A crayfish invasion into your peg is particularly frustrating as any bait placed on or near the bottom is quickly seized upon by these little demons. Being scavengers they will eat anything and everything, they are particularly fond of chopped worms, groundbait (especially fish meal based) and boilies, I've even taken them on hemp and there appears to be no time of the day or night when they are not active.

The effect of this is that the pleasure angler and a lot of the matchmen are turning their backs on the canal in preference to venues where the crayfish are not present (yet!). Financially, this will be a disaster for the BCAA in the very near future if this trend continues. You only have to wander down the canal at the weekend to the popular places like Eelmoor Flash, Claycart Flashes, Great Bottom Flash and Mytchett Lake to see that hardly anyone is fishing them.

There are studies being conducted at the moment to try and find an effective solution to this growing problem. We attended a Crayfish Seminar in Nottingham in November 2002 to see and hear what is being done nationwide to combat the crayfish curse, though it did not give us any answers. The obvious short-term answer is to trap them. We have tried this in the past and 'commercial' trapping is very short lived as the catering trade is only interested in the larger specimens of crayfish. The larger crayfish are quickly removed by trapping, leaving you with loads of smaller crayfish. And that is why for a couple of years the Basingstoke Canal Conservation Group would not allow us to continue with trapping as it's effectiveness is not conclusive. The explosion of the crayfish population the following year seems to bear this out, but could it be because we did not trap that previous year? I think this might be the case. Currently the daft thing is that as the Signal Crayfish is an alien species if you catch one, it is actually illegal to return it alive to the canal. Yet at the same time as crays are classified as fish we cannot legally take them away! Things are now looking brighter though as the Environment Agency has taken a new official stance and declared that they will not prosecute anyone for trapping and taking signal crayfish from the canal. Also the Basingstoke Canal Authority has recently recognised that the problems that crayfish are causing on the canal especially with regards to bank erosion and loss of weed.

We also have obtained a new licence to resume trapping on the canal and purchased 10 traps and started trapping in earnest in April 2004 (see below for a progress report). Unfortunately we never did hear from the Portsmouth scientist whom doing research on the canal into trap design and use of pheromones. No doubt his tests were inconclusive or we would have heard about them by now.

In the mean time please let us know the location of your multiple crayfish captures, the more information we get like that will add more weight to our applications for trapping licences.

SUGGESTIONS FOR AVOIDING CRAYFISH

Feed an area of your peg, away from your main catching, area with a ball or two of fishmeal groundbait.

Crush the first crayfish you catch and place back in the canal in area away from your main catching area.

Continually feed a light cloudy groundbait and suspend your bait at least 8" above the bottom.

If these fail then CHANGE SWIMS!

WHAT TO DO WITH A CRAYFISH WHEN CAUGHT

Grab the crayfish at the tail end of the head segment and unhook using a disgorger.

If you're still worried about the claws, offer a spare disgorger or thin stick up to both claws. The crayfish will grab this and not let go, allowing you to unhook it.

Then give it the size nine treatment - STAMP ON IT!

OR, if you're like me

TAKE IT HOME AND EAT IT!

I recommend that the latter option be only taken if you have caught in excess of 5 crayfish, as it is a bit too much work for any less than this.

The crayfish should be kept alive in water and in the shade otherwise they die anyway. When you get home place the crayfish in tap water for 48 hours so that they can flush out their systems.

To cook them: bring a large pan of salted water to boil and drop the live crayfish straight into the pan. The crayfish die immediately and do not make any squealing noises as some people think. Bring the water back to boil and simmer for at least 10 mins. By this time the crayfish will have turned bright red just like lobsters. Drain off the water and allow to cool for a couple of hours.

There are only two edible bits of a crayfish; the flesh inside the tail and inside the claws. To get to it pull the claws and the tail off of the main body and start cracking the shell to get the meat out. Along the top of the tail portion, just under the surface of the meat is the intestine of the crayfish, I always remove this just to ensure there are no nasties left in the meat. A quick rinse under the tap and they are ready to eat. The meat can be eaten plain or you can add a sprinkle of vinegar and black pepper and they taste lovely.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions or opinions on the crayfish problem please let us know by EMAIL.

TRAPPING UPDATE 3 – June 2005

We have now successfully removed over 1000Kg of crayfish from the canal since we started trapping just over a year ago. Trapping Mytchett Lake has been extremely successful as we have taken out over 400Kg from this one site alone. When we started trapping here in November we were taking out up to 30Kg a week, when we stopped trapping here in May we were down to 3Kg so looks like we have made a big impact here. Trapping continued throughout the winter as results were still being maintained at a high level which was surprising to us as we expected it to tail off dramatically, this was probably due to the mild winter we had.

Another positive aspect of continuing the trapping at this time was that we removed hundreds of female crayfish carrying thousands of eggs which should really cut down the future crayfish population. Our trapping at Mytchett ended with a big disappointment as on the last day of trapping we found that five of our traps had been stolen. This was no mean feat as they could only be reached via a boat and the traps were securely tied to the fence. So we ask all of you to keep your eyes peeled when your out and about and if you see some traps being used then please let us know immediately we can decide then if they are officially placed or not. Our traps are quite distinctive as shown in photos in the previous updates and you can only get them from abroad.

We are currently trapping Great Bottom Flash though with the method being utilised at the moment we don’t think we can continue into the season. We’ll keep you posted on our success.

TRAPPING UPDATE 2 – Nov 2004

In October we purchased a further 26 crayfish traps which has been partly funded from donations received from 6 clubs. That’s a start, but considering we have 34 clubs it’s a pretty poor show so far.

Anyway a couple of weekends ago all the traps were set along the Mytchett Lake fence and left there for the weekend. When the traps were lifted on the Sunday afternoon around 200 small crayfish were removed, not a bad start but we expected more. A dozen traps have been re-set along the lake section and will be left for a week to see if the results are any better. We’ll keep you informed of our progress.

The trapping at Eelmoor and Ash Lock is till providing relatively healthy return of approx. 7Kg every couple of days. Our total removed since May stands at around 600Kg and which relates to approximately 6000 crayfish. I think we are making an impact as certainly on the matches we have not seen so much crayfish activity this season. The only area I have had a few complaints about is Mytchett Lake which as you can see we are attacking at the moment.

Unfortunately, with the cold weather approaching we shall probably stop trapping shortly as the crayfish become torbid and hibernate when the water temperature drops, trapping should then resume in the spring.

TRAPPING UPDATE 1 –Aug 2004

In April we met with Martin Cooper who runs a company called Southern Commercial Fisherman who gave us an insight into the methods and procedures for trapping crayfish. Martin is currently employed trapping crayfish from the River Wey around Guildford and he had successfully removed 7.5 tons of crayfish from 6 miles of river in about eight months, so we figured he was the expert we needed to take advice from. As a result of the meeting we purchased 10 traps from Martin at a cost of £280 and obtained a trapping licence from the Environment Agency to operate the traps. At the same time we recruited a very willing volunteer called Nick who lives in Camberley and had a bit of spare time to operate the traps for us. Bearing in mind that to make the trapping effective the traps would have to be set and lifted every day which requires a lot of dedication from somebody.

Our first attempts at setting the traps were a complete flop. The traps were set at Eelmoor flash one Sunday morning and left for 4 hours as you can see from the photo’s our success rate was 10 traps = 5 crayfish – not a great start! It was decided to re-set the traps and leave them overnight, Nick would lift them the following morning. The following morning was good news and bad news, the good news was that we trapped and removed approx. 30 crayfish for a weight total of 3Kg. The bad news was that we had 2 traps stolen.

The trapping continued at Eelmoor for a further 3 weeks and weights removed per night built up to over 11Kg giving us a running total of over 100Kg. The morning after we took the 11Kg from the traps Nick found all the traps had been emptied and another trap had been stolen leaving us with seven traps. . It did appear that the more the bait went into the water the more crayfish were attracted into the area. However, we thought it was best to move the traps as someone was intent on sabotaging our efforts to remove these vermin from the canal, though it was obvious that the job at Eelmoor was far from done. The traps were moved to Ash Lock where we could set the traps from the privacy of Canal Authority land but this drastically cut our capture rate down to about 3Kg a night. By July this had dropped to 1Kg a night so we were obviously having an effect on the crayfish population in that area. We also lost another trap when the canal boat it was attached to was driven off somewhere, we are hopeful to get this one back. The traps were set to move again to new location which I will reveal in future updates. We estimate that we have removed over 400Kg of crayfish from the canal since April.

We are hoping to target Great Bottom Flash and Mythcett Lake in the near future and we will try to keep you posted on our success here.

CLUBS REQUESTED TO HELP WITH BUYING TRAPS

The affiliated clubs have all been requested to assist with the trapping campaign by donating £30 to buy a trap; the response so far has been slow with only three of the 34 affiliated clubs sending in their cheques. We have also managed to twist the Treasurers arm a bit and he has agreed to release enough money to buy us another ten traps, so we should be able to improve our catch rate and coverage. If anyone else wishes to contribute to a trap then please don’t be shy send your cheques to our Treasurer, he would love to see your contributions.