Are you my Crawdad?

My husband has these stories of dropping chicken bones into lakes and catching these crawdads.  It has to be KFC drumsticks, HAS TO BE!! And you can't eat it like me, where the bone is completely cleaned, you have to leave meat at the ends. Then you tie said bones to fishing, go near some rocks in a lake or river and drop it in and wait for these little creatures to grab on.

For years I called hearsay! But on the most recent trip to Lake Tahoe, I saw it with my own eyes. I dropped my chicken bone in the rocky shore of Lake Tahoe and saw these alien creatures emerge, sometimes two at a time, and grab on to the KFC drumstick.  It was so gratifying.  At that moment, I felt the most Asian I have ever felt in my whole life.  I wanted more crawdads as the endless ideas of how to cook these guys danced in my head. But at the time we did not know Nevada law on the take of these aliens. So we caught some then released some. Didn't want to get caught by the rangers

Cut to 20 minutes later, I come to find out that in the state of Nevada the following is true:

Crayfish: A fishing license is not required to capture crayfish for fishing or personal consumption. There is no limit on crayfish. A license is required to take crayfish by hook and line. A permit is required to take crayfish for commercial purposes at Lake Tahoe (crayfish may not be taken for commercial purposes at any other Nevada water.) - Nevada Fishing Guide 2013

Well shit. 

So we went back and caught six of them.I cooked them in some white wine and butter with garlic and lemon. Next year, it's going to be a massacre.  Consider this doing my part in "Keeping Tahoe Blue."

On the most basic level this is hunting. For some members of the family and for a lot of people, it is difficult to grasp to fact that these animals are alive and crawling in a Starbuck's Venti cup and thirty minutes later would find themselves in a hot white wine and garlic spa and eventually into 6 mouths. As a child I have seen many a faces of the food I have eaten, especially seafood. So this was NBD. If anything eating these crawdads is better than eating a frozen preformed hamburger.  To eat a chicken or cow knowing that they are fed hormones to make them grow to abnormal sizes, given antibiotics and raised in terrible living conditions weights heavier on my conscience than catching a crawdad that is an invasive species to a beautiful lake.  I know who caught it, where it was caught, and when it was caught.  All because I did it.  It's a great feeling to know that.  All the "hard work" (I mean the practically catch themselves) pays off.  It's also fun!