I’ve found that bigger isn’t always better in the case of Crawdads. A good size for catching Bass is about three to four inches. Most Bass seem to ignore anything bigger than that , in my experience.

The best way to hook your Crawdad is between the eyes up through the rostrum. The rostrum is the little “v” shaped area forward and above the center of the eyes. Hooking the Crawdad through this area allows it to maneuver in a more natural way and it will live indefinitely if hooked like this, just be careful not to hook it through the brain. You also don’t want to hook it too far forward or you will fling the crawdad off when you cast.

Crawdads are also easy to find and catch. An easy way to do this is to take a small piece of meat, like bacon, or ham and tie it to a string, go to a area that has low levels of water in it year around, like a small stream or irrigation ditch, toss the meat in a wait a little bit, if there are Crawdads around, they will come after the meat, when they do, gently lift the string and put your bucket or a net underneath the Crawdads that are hanging on to the meat. It saves a trip to the bait store and you know for a fact that they are fresh.