Crawfish adventures...

Yesterday we went fishing with some friends. We loaded up their Trail Blazer and headed for Strawberry Reservoir. We were only slightly concerned about weather conditions justifying our excursion by saying that the overcast weather would help the fishing and it would be totally worth a few raindrops on us. Once we found a spot we drug all of our gear down the hill and started to make the fire... and continued to try to make a fire. The wind was blowing so fiercely that we all had to huddle around our little pile of sticks to keep the wind from blowing our little fire out before it grew big enough to handle that much wind. Needless to say we were cold for a while. Once we got the fire started I began roasting the hot dogs we had brought for lunch while Dave strung up his rod and had a round of unfruitful casting. Bradley was off to investigate every inch of the new area and see just how much trouble he could get into since mom was busy with the fire. We had a wet lunch given that as soon as I cooked the first round of hot dogs the clouds fell open and dumped right on us. I was beginning to think 5pm couldn't come soon enough. The weather calmed down a little bit later and since there was still no fish to speak of, Dave suggested that I tie a piece of hot dog on a line and see if we could catch some crawfish. I did as I was instructed thinking that it was the most ludicrous thing I had ever heard. I sat on the edge of a rock watching to see if I could see a fish or something swim by when suddenly I saw a shadow moving quickly across the rocks a little ways under the water. "Hey!" I called, "I think I see one!" Dave came running over and confirmed my suspicion. By then there were two of them and being the impatient person that I am (and not wanting to ruin a piece of hot dog if I didn't have to) ran over to get the fish net we had brought. I balanced myself on a dry rock by where the crawfish was crawling and reached out as far as I could without falling in. It wasn't quite far enough. The water was deceptively deeper than I thought so I had a decision to make. Either wait for it to get closer or step down into ankle deep, freezing water. Now this is our dinner we are talking about here. Not just some creature I wanted to poke. We had gone out to get dinner and no one else seemed to be having any luck so I made my decision. I stepped into the water as smoothly as I could and I ever so slowly glided the net over the crawfish. As I pulled the net up from the rocky bottom of the lake I couldn't believe what was in my net! One medium sized crawfish clung to the fishing net probably a little more shocked than I was. I ran him over to the cooler and dropped him in as quickly as I could so I could go scout some more. About 3 hours later we had 4 pieces of hot dog out on different lines in a few areas of the lake and I was scooping them out of the water every 15 minutes or so. As we were packing up there was a whole slew of them coming out to eat and I was able to come home with 16 in total!! We didn't catch anything else that day but with soaking wet clothes and my lucky net I was able to bring home the bacon (or in this case the crawfish). That was enough for my ego! I came home and started looking up recipes for what to do with them. Normally when you get 16 of something it's a pretty good meal. However, with crawfish you don't get that lucky. After boiling them with some spices and veggies I peeled them and barely got 2oz of meat out of them. My poor little ego shrank in embarrassment. We will be eating my spoils tonight with dinner instead of as dinner.
Not to fret though for I will be out there again very soon and this time I will bring home enough bacon (crawfish) to feed the whole family!!