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2024 Crawfish Season (or lack thereof)

Storm the Field

By Storm the Field
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Storm the Field

Storm the Field 5372

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Due to the horrendous drought last year, followed up by the big freeze in January, crawfish supplies are scarce and prices nauseatingly expensive. Seeing upwards of $15/lb at the few restaurants and bars that are even serving currently, and $8/lb or more for live crawfish if you can even find them. If I called my guy that drives a big refrigerated truck over from Louisiana on weekends and asked for a price quote right now, I'd probably hear raucous laughter. 

I usually wait until  late March or early April for prices to drop enough to grab a few sacks for a boil, but am usually willing to grab a couple lbs cooked to snack on somewhere for Mardi Gras. Don't reckon I'll be doing either this year. Have to imagine it will be damn near Summer until prices get closer to where they usually are in the Spring.

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 107147

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4 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

Due to the horrendous drought last year, followed up by the big freeze in January, crawfish supplies are scarce and prices nauseatingly expensive. Seeing upwards of $15/lb at the few restaurants and bars that are even serving currently, and $8/lb or more for live crawfish if you can even find them. If I called my guy that drives a big refrigerated truck over from Louisiana on weekends and asked for a price quote right now, I'd probably hear raucous laughter. 

I usually wait until  late March or early April for prices to drop enough to grab a few sacks for a boil, but am usually willing to grab a couple lbs cooked to snack on somewhere for Mardi Gras. Don't reckon I'll be doing either this year. Have to imagine it will be damn near Summer until prices get closer to where they usually are in the Spring.

Yeah....I may get a sack and do a small boil late season, but it sure sounds like this season is pretty much a lost cause.

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immamac

immamac 44512

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10 hours ago, kevwun said:

Yeah, my friend already cancelled his big boil and the cookoff we were gonna do.  You could literally serve everyone at a party prime ribeyes for less money than crawfish this year.

well thats a fucking idea right there.

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11942

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My department is pressing on with their annual crawfish boil in April. One of my coworkers has a crawfish boil business as his side hustle, and the Louisiana guys LOVE to help out, so I guess they couldn’t take this away from them. 
 

I would be completely onboard with BBQ or steaks, but I guess crawfish is so engrained as a Houston thing it wouldn’t much of a party without mudbugs. 

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Texzilla58

Texzilla58 4810

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My department is pressing on with their annual crawfish boil in April. One of my coworkers has a crawfish boil business as his side hustle, and the Louisiana guys LOVE to help out, so I guess they couldn’t take this away from them. 
 
I would be completely onboard with BBQ or steaks, but I guess crawfish is so engrained as a Houston thing it wouldn’t much of a party without mudbugs. 

I don’t understand the infatuation with crawfish. I’ve been eating them for 40 years going back to college as a couple fraternity brothers from Nola would bring up 1000 lbs (about 25 cents lb then). But when you have access to cheap gulf shrimp, the finest on earth, why spend $15/lb for bugs? Have shrimp and crab boil.
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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11942

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27 minutes ago, Texzilla58 said:


I don’t understand the infatuation with crawfish. I’ve been eating them for 40 years going back to college as a couple fraternity brothers from Nola would bring up 1000 lbs (about 25 cents lb then). But when you have access to cheap gulf shrimp, the finest on earth, why spend $15/lb for bugs? Have shrimp and crab boil.

I could see shrimp boils on the uptick after this year. They were pretty big with rodeo and O&G socials back in the day. People might realize again that boiled shrimp taste pretty good and require 1/10th of the work as cracking a crawfish. But… it’s become a very Houston thing. Almost every bar with a food license sells crawfish. And every town south of Huntsville has big ass crawfish festivals. I think the margins were better in the recent past and they’ve trapped themselves. 
 

There’s only one place I’ll pay for crawfish in Houston, but I’m not giving it up out of fear of being down voted like a Ketch sock. 
 

There are enough of these boils in Houston where if you have a job or a social network, you really shouldn’t really have to pay for crawfish. Be a generous guest, bring booze. 

Edited by billfromlaketravis
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Smax

Smax 3800

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On 2/17/2024 at 11:16 PM, Texzilla58 said:


I don’t understand the infatuation with crawfish. I’ve been eating them for 40 years going back to college as a couple fraternity brothers from Nola would bring up 1000 lbs (about 25 cents lb then). But when you have access to cheap gulf shrimp, the finest on earth, why spend $15/lb for bugs? Have shrimp and crab boil.

 I agree, one the aspects about it was how cheap they were. Spent plenty a weekend afternoon on the back patio at Floyds off Durham, it was like $2 a pound with everything and dollar longnecks. I still love me some crawfish but wouldn't be upset showing up to a boil to find out it was shrimp and crab

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Enemy07

Enemy07 341

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Doing a shrimp boil for a group of ten. How much shrimp, corn, and potatos would be reasonable so everyone can be satisfied and have some to take if they want leftovers? What seasoning to use and what measurements to not be over/under seasoned?

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Texzilla58

Texzilla58 4810

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Doing a shrimp boil for a group of ten. How much shrimp, corn, and potatos would be reasonable so everyone can be satisfied and have some to take if they want leftovers? What seasoning to use and what measurements to not be over/under seasoned?

I would think a pound of headless 2 pounds head on per person plus some, so maybe 14lbs headless?

I’m a beer, lemon, Zatarains, celery boil guy. I’d keep the eat on the side and let those folks needing heat add their own.
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Gene Parmesan

Gene Parmesan 4119

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On 2/20/2024 at 2:30 PM, Smax said:

 I agree, one the aspects about it was how cheap they were. Spent plenty a weekend afternoon on the back patio at Floyds off Durham, it was like $2 a pound with everything and dollar longnecks. I still love me some crawfish but wouldn't be upset showing up to a boil to find out it was shrimp and crab

The same with chicken wings.  I'm not going to turn them down if offered, but I'll put my money elsewhere if I am buying.

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CHIEF

CHIEF 5254

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We stopped by the boiling booth outside of our HEB yesterday, to get an idea of how much crawfish were going for by the pound, and to gauge the size. Turns out, all they had was shrimp, and a sign that said they wouldn't have crawfish until March.

CHIEF

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CHIEF

CHIEF 5254

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Just got a text from my crawfish guy, prices are staying around $7.99/lb. Apparently the killer right now is mortality. He said that about a 3rd of each bag is dead. An abnormal amount of crawfish are molting in the crawfish sacks and getting crushed to death. 

CHIEF

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tigol

tigol 2518

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It's been a long time since I took crustacean biology, (never), so are they molting early or late?
I assume that either way we're blaming it on climate change. 

My guess is that they are mostly babies that molt more frequently than adults.
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Storm the Field

Storm the Field 5372

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On 2/24/2024 at 11:06 AM, Enemy07 said:

@Texzilla58

20240224_105159.jpg

I did this exact same thing on Sunday with a couple of friends. $30 got me 6 lbs of the large EZ peel. Basic boil with a some potatoes, corn and andouille. It would have been a perfect day for a crawfish boil, but shrimp will have to do for now.

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Storm the Field

Storm the Field 5372

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On 2/20/2024 at 10:55 AM, Storm the Field said:

Seeing very early signs of price improvements. I keep an eye on Boyd's seafood market down in Texas City since they post prices just about every day. They have sacks for $5.55/lb today, which is still crazy high, but that's down from $6.99/lb just a week ago.  

 

Weekday prices continuing to slowly improve:

This week they've got $4.44/ for field run, $5.22 for preferred.

Weekend prices still obnoxious:

$5.88 for field run, $6.55 for preferred

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TonyTexas

TonyTexas 10829

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On 2/27/2024 at 4:33 PM, Storm the Field said:

I did this exact same thing on Sunday with a couple of friends. $30 got me 6 lbs of the large EZ peel. Basic boil with a some potatoes, corn and andouille. It would have been a perfect day for a crawfish boil, but shrimp will have to do for now.

I got some of those last weekend and i won’t make that mistake again. Tasteless, texture was off and, IMHO, the EZ peel aspect makes the not good for boiling. I’m ok with farm raised, prefer wild caught but will stay away from the EZs in the future. 

Edited by TonyTexas
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Rudiger

Rudiger 1184

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On 2/27/2024 at 12:21 AM, CHIEF said:

Just got a text from my crawfish guy, prices are staying around $7.99/lb. Apparently the killer right now is mortality. He said that about a 3rd of each bag is dead. An abnormal amount of crawfish are molting in the crawfish sacks and getting crushed to death. 

CHIEF

Well, yeah, mortality is nature’s #1 killer. 

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austingirl

austingirl 2198

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Was at Schooner in Nederland yesterday and the crawfish prices hadn't changed yet, but they were talking about how they'd need to bump them up soon and how they'd held out as long as they could. I got the blackened opelousas with shrimp and crab and didn't miss crawfish at all, but we'll see how it goes a few months from now.

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Storm the Field

Storm the Field 5372

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Prices gradually started to come down over the last few weeks, but are spiking crazy high again for Easter weekend. One place I keep an eye on went from like $4/lb on Monday to damn near $7 this coming weekend.  Lot of places not even taking reservations. 

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bluto

bluto 5002

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On 2/21/2024 at 3:15 PM, Gene Parmesan said:

The same with chicken wings.  I'm not going to turn them down if offered, but I'll put my money elsewhere if I am buying.

I’ve pretty much turned my wing consumption  to homemade variety… plain wings from grocery store at $3-4/lb, air fryer, baking powder (not soda) to help crisp, then the key is buying a jar of sauce from pluckers for $5. 

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CHIEF

CHIEF 5254

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Mrs. CHIEF has stayed on top of the season. I quit checking prices and size. Looks like she is planning a boil the third weekend in April. Prices are down, size is good, and there aren't as many dead soldiers. I still want to write the season off, but that bitch is persistent. May have to let her rub my "Man card" on her bearded clam.

CHIEF 

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