Using Pillow Traps to Catch Crawfish
Keith Lusher 03.05.24
We’ve all experienced that feeling when we learn that we’ve been doing something wrong our whole life. I recently had that feeling when I was humbled by a gentleman who knows a lot about catching crawfish.
CJ Mayeux was born in Bunkie, LA. That’s where he learned to run crawfish traps as a commercial fisherman. Now Mayeux is retired but he still loves to go crawfishing. I joined Mayeux on a trip to the Honey Island Swamp to learn more about how he catches these “mudbugs.”
We started our day in Indian Village which is located on the West Pearl River located on the MS/LA border. After launching his 19-foot custom-made aluminum crawfish boat into the river, we headed to the swamp. The boat was loaded down with pillow traps. I actually own some of these traps, but I told Mayeux that I don’t like them because I never catch a lot of crawfish with them. His answer to that statement was “Well you’re either crawfishing in the wrong place or setting the trap wrong.” I shrugged it off and we entered the swamp. That’s where Mayeux grabbed his first trap and started baiting it. He opened the first trap and tossed in some cut pogey (Menhaden). Then he secured it with a simple clothespin. Next, he tied the line to a cypress tree and placed the trap in the water. But instead of placing the trap horizontally on the swamp bottom, the trap was set at a 45-degree angle.
That’s when I learned that I had been doing it all wrong all this time.“These traps aren’t made to lay horizontal,” he said. “If you lay pillow traps flat, the crawfish aren’t able to get in because the openings are about 3 inches off of the bottom. When the trap is placed at a 45-degree angle, the ramps to the openings touch the bottom and the crawfish are able to climb up the ramp and enter the trap.” This would explain why I had never had much luck using these traps – the crawfish simply couldn’t get into the trap. Mayeux continued to set the rest of the 30 traps in his boat. “I usually let them soak for a day or two – so about every other day I empty and rebait them,” he said. March kicks off the crawfish season for Mayeux. The Cajun veteran said he has been catching 6-9 sacks of crawfish, running 100 traps every other day.
