© 2025 Red River Radio
Voice of the Community
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Attention: Our site will be undergoing maintenance over the next few days. Thank you for your patience.

Cold Conditions Cause Concern for Crawfish Season

Shelby Hauck and Ryan Williams unload freshly harvested crawfish at the LSU AgCenter Aquaculture Research Station.
Shelby Hauck and Ryan Williams unload freshly harvested crawfish at the LSU AgCenter Aquaculture Research Station. It is located on 178 acres south of Baton Rouge and includes 146 experimental ponds totaling 100 surface acres.

LSU AgCenter crawfish expert Mark Shirley says the mudbugs will bury themselves as deep as they can into the mud during cold conditions.

One big question is what kind of impact the snowstorm and cold temperatures might have on the upcoming crawfish season? That’s largely because that season typically runs from mid-January through early July for crawfish caught in the wild, with the peak months being March, April and May, as spelled out on the We Love Crawfish website.
As Joe Gallinaro with the Louisiana Radio Network reports, LSU AgCenter crawfish expert Mark Shirley says the mudbugs will bury themselves as deep as they can into the mud. “It’s not gonna kill the crawfish but it will significantly reduce their movement. So I think the supply of crawfish over the next several days, well probably come next week or so, it’s going to be a shorter supply of crawfish.”

Live crawfish at Riceland Crawfish in Eunice, Louisiana.
Live crawfish at Riceland Crawfish in Eunice, Louisiana.

Some seafood restaurants have started selling crawfish. Shirley says all it takes is some warm weather to begin harvesting again. “It will be a temporary thing. When water temperature gets back up into the upper 50’s, or better yet, into the 60’s, we’ll see the catch increase quite a bit.”

Joshua Katz, Dept. of Statistics, NC State University
/

Despite the winter storm and freezing conditions this week, Shirley says that has not dampened expectations of a better crawfish season, compared to 2024, “when we had the drought. We had a significant reduction in the catch,”

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, and a graduate of the University of Washington, Jeff began his on-air broadcasting career 33 years ago in the Black Hills of South Dakota as a general assignment reporter.
Affiliate Relations Coordinator,