If you note your calendar, you’ll see that it’s still December. However, it’s crawfish season here in the Crescent City even though you may still be putting presents under the Christmas tree. Laney King, co-founder of The Crawfish App (an app that shows you live & boiled crawfish vendors in your area and sorts them by lowest price per pound), says that while last year’s crawfish season was delayed by three months due to a drought, you DO typically see some crawfish vendors kicking things off during the holidays. “Other than last year, typically we do see several vendors in Louisiana who get crawfish as early as Thanksgiving. So, December isn’t completely out of the ordinary, but this year we’re already seeing a great number of vendors offering both live sacks and boiled crawfish,” King illustrates.
In a year where the hot and cold swings have been fairly wide and unpredictable, that was bound to have an effect on this crawfish harvest according to King. “The weather, temperature, and rain have everything to do with when the season starts. Thankfully we had a good bit of rain this summer and no droughts,” Laney says. “The fall had mild temperatures and we got some good rain in November. The temperatures have stayed mild, and that’s what makes the crawfish actually come out to eat, reproduce, and be big and plentiful for the February/March heart of the season,” King explains.
While it’s great to be able to enjoy this winter crawfish harvest, King does warn that they will likely come at a hefty price for a while. “Because of the low supply, people can expect higher than usual prices. It’s all a supply and demand issue, and that’s always an issue in December and January. Hopefully they’ll creep a little lower come January,” King says. “There’s not a huge supply right now and there is a high demand, so you will see higher prices probably until around March or so. Because of that initially low supply, prices will be higher early on in the season here,” she goes on to note.
If you’re willing to pay a little extra, you can fire up a crawfish boil for friends and family to add some Louisiana flare to your holiday celebration. While early season crawfish are typically on the smaller side, King says she’s getting word that the harvest is yielding some decent-sized mudbugs. “Normally the crawfish would be high priced but pretty small. However, we’re hearing that the crawfish being sold are a little bigger than usual. While I haven’t had any myself yet, I’m hearing from lots of people that those higher priced crawfish are actually of a decent size in December, which is great news!” King emphasizes. Louisiana, it looks like it’s up to you to get out there and find out for yourself what this year’s harvest holds!