One year (2004), when I also had the opportunity to help with the fishing, I decided to document the event. Turns out it was a good year to do so, as you will see.
Norra Båtvik (literally translates to Northern Boat Bay)
Kitty!!! His name is Tarzan.
Empty all the water out of the boat.
Cut up the bait (fish).
Put the bait in the traps.
Load up with two lines’ worth of traps and bait.
Empty the traps in the middle of the night. Sometimes you can empty them twice, e.g. around midnight and again at around 4am. You have to empty them before it gets light otherwise the crayfish can find their way out.
Pulling up the traps.
Emptying the traps. Lots of crayfish in this one!
Lots and lots of crayfish!
Put them in a holding pen until morning.
A lovely morning looking out over Båtvik.
Ok, that’s a lot of crayfish!
Sorting. Watch out for your fingers! We usually throw back the ones shorter than 10cm (4in).
Unfortunately the film and sound file one of our friends took during this process was lost in a computer crash.
If you wait too long to sort them, they will start eating each other.
2004 was a record year. We saved 551 crayfish!!! Tobias and Christina’s mom said she’d never seen that many crayfish and started panicking over how to cook them all in time!
I can tell you that you don’t feel sorry for throwing them into the boiling water after the long process of catching them.
There were so many, we had to think of a fast way to cool them down...the bathtub!
Eat Eat Eat!
Freshly caught and home cooked crayfish are so good that I just eat them the whole evening. Normally you just eat some then go over to more substantial food, but not me! It takes my hands a few days to recover from all the nicks and scratches, but it’s worth it! 2004 was one of the few years that I could eat as many as I wanted (normally the crayfish run out before I’m satisfied (or at least too tired to continue). I think my record is 60 or so.
This event is definitely one of the highlights of the year!
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