Crawfish fewer, smaller and pricier because of cold snap

Lavis Conoco ready at the pump since 1957
February 24, 2015
Kenneth Daigneault
February 25, 2015
Lavis Conoco ready at the pump since 1957
February 24, 2015
Kenneth Daigneault
February 25, 2015

Crawfish season kicked off with Lent’s arrival, but the recent cold weather is keeping the supply low, crawfish small and prices high.

“Right now people are really looking for crawfish because I can’t produce enough for sure,” said James Cantrelle, a crawfish farmer in Raceland with a total of 50 acres Df crawfish ponds. Cantrelle said he crawfishes all week, but by “Friday afternoon I’m out.”


The price of a pound of live meiium-to-large crawfish Thursday was between $3.49 and $3.99.

“The price is still high, but the quantity is starting to get here,” said Gary Blanchard, owner of the Crawfish House, which sells both live and boiled seafood.

Blanchard said he expected the price to drop by approximately 50 cents per pound this week because Df warm weather over the week-3nd. By Thursday, Blanchard said he was able to buy significantly more crawfish than he was able to earlier in the week and he only Bxpects that trend to keep growing.


According to Chris Bonzillain, a biologist at Nicholls University, crawfish are cold-blooded crustaceans and do not forage for food until the water temperatures warm up closer to 70 degrees.

Leroy “Knock” Foret, who has 11 acres of crawfish ponds, said not Dnly are the crawfish not as active during the colder weather, forcing them to burrow into the mud and hibernate, but the colder weather also inhibits the growth of a fungus that the crawfish eat.

“When it’s gonna start warming up then that fungus is going to develop on that plant,” said Foret.


“. .and that’s what they live off of. That’s what they mostly eat.”

The temperature also affects the size of crawfish, Bonzillain said.

The crustaceans do not start molting until the water temperature is about 70 degrees. Crawfish need to molt in order to grow.


“Crawfish [are] small right now because of the cold,” said Al Mahler, owner of Big Al’s Seafood in Houma. “I could already see in the last week a little change in the size. The few days we had it warm, you could see the size started to get better. [Last Wednesday and Thursday], we got that cold weather, the size went down again.”

The price for crawfish will drop significantly once the Atchafalaya Basin begins producing wild caught crawfish in the spring.

“The market is always flooded when the Atchafalaya Basin starts producing, they drop more crawfish on the market,” Cantrelle said.


Bonzillain said that the Atchafalaya River Basin starts really producing wild crawfish when the river’s water level is at 10 feet. The flood stage meter in particular that crawfishermen and biologists pay most attention to is the one located in Butte La Rose.

The Butte La Rose water meter read 4.79 feet Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

Bonzillain said what is important to look at is the snowpack in the Ohio River Basin and the northern part of the Mississippi River Basin. He said there has been “a lot of snowfall.”


But how much water enters the Atchafalaya River Basin is not the only factor. Getting higher volumes of water when it’s cold does crawfishermen no good. The water level must rise when the temperatures rise for the crawfish to become active. Also, the longer the basin’s water level stays high, the longer the crawfish season is, Bonzillain said.

“Until we get some serious rain or some flood waters from up north when the snow starts melting, they can’t get in the basin to go fishing, you know,” Blanchard said. “That’s affecting the price a lot.”

Mahler predicts that this crawfish season will be a plentiful one, despite the short supply now. “Just going to the rice fields…and talking to the fishermen, they see a lot of little crawfish,” said Mahler. “A lot.”


Ronald Williams boils crawfish at the Crawfish House of Houma. Prices are high right now because the cold weather is keeping supply low.

JEAN-PAUL ARGUELLO | THE TIMES