Louisiana rice farmers who plan to harvest crawfish from their fields next year should consider restocking crawfish once their rice crops have been flooded.

But restocking permanent ponds is seldom anything but a waste of time and money, according to LSU AgCenter crawfish researcher Ray McClain.

The only time restocking is justifiable in a permanent pond is with a newly constructed pond or in an existing one that has been affected by a catastrophe.

“Under normal circumstances, if there’s enough crawfish to harvest, there’s enough crawfish for a brood stock,” McClain said. Trapping crawfish is so inefficient it will not deplete enough crawfish to affect the next year’s production.

Restocking crawfish in rice fields that are in a crawfish-rice rotation should be done before June when water becomes hot.

Several points that should be remembered when stocking include:

“You want to get them in the water as soon as possible, and you don’t want crawfish that are kept in a cooler.”

Generally, McClain said, stocking is a good idea when rice is six to eight weeks old, the permanent flood has been established and the rice is beyond the need for insecticides.