Tales and Trails

BY DAVE BECK Trapping Lake Vermilion ‘mini lobster’

I spent almost two weeks on Lake Vermilion and hon- estly, the fishing was pretty tough. It rained almost every day forcing me to construct a clothesline in the middle of the cabin so that I could dry out both sets of my rain gear. It was as if cold front after cold front were lined up, taking turns to knock down musky fishing every day. The one thing that was not auected by the weather was crayfish trapping. Lake Vermilion is in the middle of an unfortunate in- vasive species in the form of the rusty crayfish. Because of that classification, trapping crayfish is both legal and no license is required. It's actu –

ally a blast to do. Last year was my first at – tempt at trapping crayfish. I thought I was doing okay until I ran into a 10-year-old boy who talked about how full his crayfish trap was. He told me that there were so many in his trap that it would have been impossible to count them all. Since he nev – er asked, I never volunteered that I had trapped only 10 crayfish. Last year I thought that a good bait to toss in the trap would be a punctured can of tuna. My catches were mod – est, to say the least. I wished I had asked that young whip per snapper what he was us- ing for bait to attract so much action. This year I took a diuer – ent approach. The first thing I did was catch a 32-inch northern pike. The pike fil – lets went a long-ways toward a terrific fresh fish fry but it was the backbone that had a higher purpose than just plain old compost. I used it for rusty crayfish bait. I placed the 8-inch backbone section in the trap, threw the trap into deeper water, and hoped for better results. The next morning, I went musky fishing and forgot all about the trap. I tend to get tunnel vision when I have musky fishing on the agenda so it's not unusual for me to forget about other things. When I came back to the cabin for lunch, I checked the trap. It doesn't matter if I'm pulling a muskrat trap, a fisher trap or even a mouse trap, as a trapper there is al- ways a small jolt of adrena – line and excitement built up from the anticipation of pull- ing the trap. I was anxious to check it.

I got pretty fired up when I pulled up my trap from the end of the dock. The bottom of the trap was covered with crayfish. I was well on my way to a crayfish dinner. I even had time to put the trap back in the lake to catch even more crayfish before the eve – ning meal. When it came time for supper, I had more than enough Vermilion mini lobsters for a taste. What do they taste like? Well, they really do

taste like lobster but in much smaller bites. As hard as they are to catch sometimes, they are equally as hard to eat because of the amount of peeling, cracking and shucking. Even the biggest claws provide only a small morsel of meat and the tails only slightly more. It was a great diversion from a tough musky bite.

Didn’t get enough Dave this week? Visit “Outdoor Trails and Tales with Dave Beck” on Facebook for photos and video of Dave’s adventures. You can share your own photos and video with him there as well, or by emailing him at [email protected] piercecountyjournal.news Also, check out OTT content on Instagram @thepiercecountyjournal

Trapping rusty crayfish was a good diversion from a tough time musky fishing on Lake Vermilion. Photos by Dave Beck