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lfinsr wrote:There were no mudbugs where I grew up (Albuquerque) and the only ones I've ever seen were in Jamablaya. So... if one of those critters were to actually get a hold of you with those pinchers, how much bite they got?

They hurt just a little. It's very easy to get used to it so it doesn't bother you. It's more of a surprise than it is painful.

At 10 or 12 years old, I used to blindly stick my hand in a bucket full of them to grab one to bait a trot line with.

puma guy wrote:Crawfish can live in burrows built in areas far from a creek or lake. The mounds are very evident (they look like little cones made of mud balls) and even though you may not have any in your yard the recent rains may have driven some out of their holes from another area. When I was a kid we'd "fish" for them with a piece bacon on a string inserted into the hole and slowly pull them out when they grabbed on.

As a kid, I used to do that all the time at my grandparent''s farm. We would also toss rocks into the holes (very, very slowly so we didn't bury the critters) until they crawled out.

I have several crawdad holes in my yard all year 'round. The nearest creek is about a mile away, as the crow flies. It's not at all unusual to find them on my driveway or sidewalks after a rain. One of my granddaughters brought one in, kept it in a fishbowl and fed it for a while.