Crayfishing

Moving along the Lee Navigation, the Crew is driving the boat and I’ve been relegated to galley slave.  Two boys on the towpath are keeping apace of the boat.  I hear one of them shout

‘Hey mister will you give us a ride’

‘No’

‘Oh why not go one our legs are killing us’

‘We’ve got a vicious dog on board’

The vicious dog must have stuck his sweet shaggy head around the door because they suddenly burst into fits of laughter and shout ‘That’s not a vicious dog’

‘His mother is a Jack Russell so he’s a Natural Born Killer’

The Natural Born Killer wags his tail and smiles at them.

The vicious dog

A bit further on and they have another request ‘Can we borrow your stick with a hook, we’ve lost one of our nets and we want to fish it out’

This time the driver relents, backs up and gives them the boat hook.  They poke around with it and bring up a crayfish net, crammed with crayfish feeding on a large fish head.  Then untie the pot and leg it behind some bushes. When we look we can see a line of crayfish pots strung along the bank-side.  We retrieve the boat pole and leave quickly.  We don’t want to be implicated in the crime of stealing crayfish and pots if the irate owner suddenly appears from the caravan site behind those bushes.

The American Signal Crayfish are abundant on the River Lea.  I’ve seen fishermen catch them and pots full of them.  A boat moored behind me had a pot out and within an hour had three crayfish in them. I quite fancy the idea of a crayfish pot because I like eating crayfish but I’m not sure if I have the stomach to throw the ugly little beasts in a pot of boiling water and then shell them.

The Barge Inn in Hertford is having a Crayfish Fest sometime in August which should rid the river of a few of this invasive species but I think they need a lot more catchers (who need to be licensed) to make any real impact on them.