This past Saturday night I was visiting a friend who has a small creek in his yard. After dinner a few of us went down to the water with our headlamps.
Using the light (incandescent) we were able to locate a whole lot of crayfish. Then we waded in, held their heads down with a twig and grabbed their tails. We caught a dozen in just a few minutes.

This made me think. Crawdads are easier to find and catch than fish. As long as wading into a creek will not cause you to get hypothermic catching crayfish could be an easy way to find food in the wilderness. They also make great bait as well.

Man I felt like a 10 year old kid all over again standing in that tiny creek hunting for "mudbugs".

If you're in the right part of the country, sure.

billym:

you call them "mudbugs" here in southern Calif. We call them "sewer lobsters".

If you like that, you'll love what an M80 can do in your favorite trout pond. Drop one in, and dinner for a week will come floating to the surface. Now, I would only condone this in a survival situation, but, it has been tested, or so I have heard. YMMV

I used to catch crayfish during day time in the shallow water of a stream. They usually hide under rocks, and when they run away, they swim backward so you put your net or pot in front of a random rock and lift it and if there is a crayfish it will swim right into your pot. Crayfish are good bait for bass, but you can also boil them for a dinner.

In some areas crayfish hibernate, and some places the pollution can render them unsafe to eat (they MUST be cooked, otherwise the parasites they have COULD start eating you), this said, they can be excellent eating (and not just for survival).
Also, remember that they usually are regulated by fishing laws.

Boil them with cayenne pepper, irish potatoes, onions, mushrooms, carrots, and corn on the cob. You will have a Cajun Boiled Dinner that will make you bring back things that you haven't even thought of stealing yet!!!!

If I get time, I'll write up the true story of where crawfish (mudbugs) came from!

Yes it's the same with frogs. The larvae find themselves in an unatural host, therefore they are lost and start migrating randomly instead of heading to the intestine and cause irreparable damage to the infested organs. There have been cases of migration up to the brain where they settle and start their metamorphose into worm. You start suffering from headaches, hallucinations, difficulty with balance, partial loss of motor control, paralysis, chronic epilepsy, seizure and then... death.

In the right waters, you can catch a heap of crawdad buidling a wier trap and baiting it with a ham bone. You will undoubtedly get other things as well, but them crawdad like to gnaw some I reckon.

KarenRei
You can find them in almost every state. They seem to exist all over the world in some species or other.

Big Al,
Sewer Lobsters; you definitely have to pick the water in which you hunt. Some water is too dirty to consider the "dads" for anything but the fun catching them and bait. But if the water is nice clean then they can be real tasty. They even sell them frozen at IKEA.

Great recipes and comments everybody! I will have to try some of your traps and catching methods.