Crayfish

This time of year it's time to put the creels in the water to catch crayfish.
The blip shows a modern, plastic creel, "mjärde" in Swedish. Since crayfish are active during night, you generally put them in in the evening, loaded with pieces of fish as bait, and empty them in the morning.

I noticed the farmer had already put his creels in when I went for my walk this afternoon, traditionally a bit early, but not many traditions are kept anymore. There used to be a law against starting catching crayfish earlier than 8th of August but is now more or less up to local authorities or water owner to decide about.

After the crayfish are caught they are placed in a livewell, "fisksump" in Swedish and are left for at least 24 hour for the crayfish to starve so they will empty their bowels. They are then killed by putting them into boiling water, head first. This part is regulated to ensure they don't suffer unnecessary when killed. The boiling water also gives  the crayfish their red color, in the wild they are grey.

Crayfish are considered a delicacy and eating them is an art. Generally you eat them during crayfish-parties, often outside during the warm August evenings with lamps hanging from the trees around the table.Drinking a huge amount of white spirit is one of the traditions during the party, which can be rather loud after a while. You can learn more about it here.

I'm not very fond of crayfish myself, I can eat one or two just to be a part of the social event but I think the hassle of finding the little meat there is to eat on them is not worth the trouble.