Should I work on levees now or wait
June 28, 2011
Many questions this time of year seem to be about reworking levees. There are many considerations that need to be made prior to making a decision to work on levees. The reason this can become a problem is because reworking levees will often compact dirt where crawfish have burrowed and will prevent them from being able to emerge later. If you did already stock last month (although this should something rarely done on a regular pond operation), reworking levees will most likely undo all of that hard work.
If: the pond was overpopulated last year you may want to consider reworking at this time. However, generally it may be a good idea to only do minor work or rework one main levee per season. Another would be if you have many baffle levees available where the population may have burrowed would allow for some levee work. However, if crawfish were large at the end of the season but few in number, reworking levees now could greatly reduce the population in the pond. The key idea is to remember that anything you do now could cause problems down the road with the population and harvest. If crawfish are killed now, it may be very difficult to have an initial catch at the beginning of the season. If you want to rework levees now, you may want to consider rebuilding one or two major levees and not do a complete rework.
