Question & Answer: What determines when crawfish season begins and ends?

Actually, Mother Nature and the mudbugs themselves determine the duration of the season!

Here at Frugé Aquafarms, we seed mature crawfish into our rice fields over the summer. Those crawfish breed and burrow down deep beneath the ponds to escape the late-summer heat and the rice harvest, and don’t emerge until the fields are re-flooded in the fall. Those tiny crawfish (the size of ants) feed on the nutrient rich rice stubble and grow into the delicious mudbugs we harvest for the season, which typically starts around November or December.

Unless Mother Nature throws a curve ball with an incredibly wet or cold winter, the best months for Louisiana crawfish are March, April and May. June is usually when the heat of summer starts to crank up, water quality deteriorates and crawfish slowly begin to burrow down to escape the hot temperatures.  Crawfish stocking again occurs in that season’s rice fields, and the process starts all over to keep your pot boiling year after year!