It's like the rainbow after the flood

T-P: When swollen Mississippi River subsides, crawfish will be easy pickins

Their abundance largely will be due to the added oxygen in the waterway after decomposing vegetation has been flushed out, said Robert Romaire, a Louisiana State University AgCenter professor who studies crawfish management.

Randy Bourque, 34, already noticed a difference while out in the river Thursday morning. He was out to extend the lines on his traps to accommodate the rising tide.

“During Easter, the Holy Week, it was like a sewage pit out there, smelling, completely black,” Bourque said. “Now everything’s clean, and them crawfish is shedding and getting pretty.”

Higher oxygen levels will keep much more crawfish alive longer than during a typical year, and as more water is expected to remain in the river for longer, the crustaceans also will have much longer to grow, according to Romaire.

While Romaire anticipates a possible wild crawfish season extending as late as August — typically it ends in June — Bourque dreams, “Man, I hope we can fish the whole year.”

So hey great. Crawfish bumper crop. It'll be great news to see the price of crawfish going down just as every other commodity affected by the floodway gets more expensive. So if you're sitting on that design for crawfish based substitute for soybeans, corn, sugar, or maybe even a crawfish powered automobile, now would be a good time to speak up.