The Sauget Crawdad Pond

As a small kid growing up on Levin Drive, myself and the other kids in the neighborhood used to spend time at a shallow muddy pond in one of the Sauget’s fields located in a low area just across the road from their farm house on Plum St.  The house is still there and the small field that holds the pond is as well, but it doesn't always hold water like it did when I was young. This pond formed along an old creek channel that once ran from Prairie du Pont Creek which we now know as the canal which separates Cahokia from Prairie du Pont. The creek channel was a tributary that likely fed  Prairie du Pont Creek and which once ran south through Old Cahokia. In the 1800’s this low area held water year round and was probably part of what was known as Cahokia Lake as shown on very old maps. This creek/lake bed can still be traced from a low area behind my mother’s house on Water Street, across Levin Drive, across Isabelle St and along Plum St towards the village of Old Cahokia parallel to Water St and west of where the Old Cahokia Dog Track was located. It can be further traced through Old Cahokia and west of the Old Court House northward towards its original confluence with another stream that entered the Mississippi.    

The small pond was not more than a few feet deep at its center and most often dried up in the summer. Around July it was normally reduced to a soggy mud hole with a dried gumbo shoreline that the hot sun hardened and cracked into jig-saw puzzle-like pieces of clay-like tile. It was a place we spent a lot of time in the summer and was simply named “The Pond” by neighborhood kids. Even though the Sauget family would frequently plant this field around the pond they never chased us away even though we likely did some damage to the crops which were most often wheat or soy beans. There was a certain kind of tolerance for children back then that you don’t see today. Today's tolerance of children lacks meaningful discipline and structure and involves parents living vicariously through their spoiled children. Don't get me started. 

We floated on crude versions of “Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn” river rafts made out of scrap lumber, large tree limbs, old doors or anything that would float. Balance was an issue and we most often ended up in the water. We floated “boats” that we made from scrap pieces of boards that were outfitted with Tinker Toy masts and sails made from small pieces of old bed sheets or newspaper. We also waded in the mud and water. Think serious mud hole. The water was thick and murky, never clear. We would sink up to our knees in the thick gray-black mass of the ponds bottom to the point you would literally get stuck in the mud and had to pull your legs free using your arms or have someone else pull you out by your arms. When your feet came free it was with this loud sucking sound, your feet createing a vacuum as they were pulled out of the mud  When both legs would become stuck we would often fall backwards in this thick goo and until we became almost totally covered with mud.  We would get so caked with this sticky mud it would dry on our legs and hands like plaster casts. The dried covering would pull at the hair on your arms and legs if you tried to scrape it off and usually had to be hosed off with the forceful spray of a garden hose. Getting muddy and getting hosed off were both good fun. 

The main thing we did at the pond was fish for crawdads. I never in my life have seen such a large colony of crayfish anywhere since. Those crawdads were totally unlike the tiny crayfish you see in bait shops or grocery stores today. These were big red monsters. They could grow to a large size six to seven inches long or more and as they grew larger they turned from gray-green to a dark red lobster-like color and developed these large powerful claws and equally large tails. Large juicy tails I might add. The pond was loaded with them and we knew how to catch them using several methods.

The most simple was to tie a small piece of bacon to the end of a string about three to five feet long with a very small rock or fishing weight to allow it to sink. You could either hold the string or tie the free end to a short pole, stick or small tree limb. You would then “cast” the line into the water a few feet from shore and wait a minute or so. The crawdads would find the bait and grab on with their claws and begin backing away with their catch. If you felt a tug on the line you could either slowly raise the line up out of the water or inch the line to the shore. If you pulled the line too fast they would let go so it had to be pulled very slowly. If a crawdad had locked on to the bait with their pinchers they would stubbornly hang on, reluctant to turn loose of their meal, usually long enough for you to grab them as soon as their backs appeared above the water. If you pulled them slowly straight up from the water they would often cling to the bacon while you swung them to the shore where they would drop off and immediately start retreating backwards to the water. Either way you had to quickly grab them by their backs to avoid their pinchers. Those big ones could hurt you and even break your skin – and they were tenacious about holding on. Crawdads swim backwards using their tails as a powerful paddle and when they are in the water they can dart about at surprising speed. Even on land they moved more quickly backwards and you had to be quick to grab them. We usually used a metal bucket about half full of water to hold our catch. I emphasize "metal" bucket as s a point of reference. Back then plastic was a novelty and the world was better for it. 

Another method for catching crawdads was to use the netting of an old potato bag like those that came from the grocery store or other netting. We would make a frame about 12” to 24” square from wire coat hangers and loosely stretch the netting over it and sew it on with string. Then we would tie string from each corner of the square that we brought together in a pyramid shape about 12 inches up from the center of the net and tie them together adding a longer string or cord to that apex. That cord was then tied to a pole to allow the net to be dropped into the water. Also from that center point we would tie a string to hold the bait that would hang down to the center of the net where we tied on a piece of bacon. Sometimes we would place a small rock on the netting to help the contraption sink to the bottom of the pond’s edge. You couldn’t see through the muddy water, so you had to watch the bait string for movement. The crawdads would have to craw to the middle of the net to get the bait and once you saw the bait string moving you quickly raised the net and swung it to shore. Sometimes, if you were patient, you would net several crawdads at once.

That was how we caught the average sized crawdads. The most daring method and sometimes the only way to catch the “big ones” was to invade their lairs. Yes they have lairs or “crawdad holes” or burrows that can easily be identified along the water’s edge of muddy Illinois ponds and streams. I think these burrows are where the females go to hatch their young. They are identified by layered mud cones that usually rise three to six inches from the muddy shore’s surface like a miniature volcano and have a large hole in the middle. The crawdad would burrow down a foot or two deep until the lower part of the hole is filled with water. The cone was formed from the mud they removed while digging the hole.

This method required is digging out the hole with your hands or with a small shovel to the point you can reach down in the hole and find the crawdad at the bottom. This takes some major effort but the one at the bottom is commonly a big one. Usually the bigger the hole the bigger the crawdad. The daring part for us kids was the fact that when you finally felt the crawdad at the bottom of the hole they didn’t take to being caught so easily and would use their only weapon against you which was their claws. They would clamp down on your fingers like a small vise and it sometimes hurt like hell, but it was worth the effort for two reasons. First, reaching down the hole added to a boy’s reputation of being fearless and manly -  because only sissies wouldn’t do it. Secondly, it was sometimes the only way to catch the big red ones with the large juicy tails.

We would take them home, wash them several times and then, often using the same bucket but with fresh water, boil them over a fire in the back yard and once done, pull the tails off, shell them, add a little salt and enjoy. Yes they were good – a poor man’s lobster. I even experimented by frying the tail meat in bacon grease over a small fire right there on the edge of the pond using the pan from my boy scout cook kit. They were delicious. Probably not too sanitary but delicious nonetheless.

I’ve been back several times to see if there are still crawdads but the pond is usually dry and I haven’t seen any evidence of crawdads, however, as of July 2013 the pond is rejuvenated as seen in the picture above. Because of the wet spring it is knee deep or more in water and is about as big as I ever recall seeing it other than right after the major floods we experienced back in the forties and fifties. The pond looks good, I think I saw cat tails coming back and I’m sure the frogs and other wildlife are returning. All is well. Next time I'm up I just might ask Danny Sauget if I can walk the banks and look for pond life. Specifically, Crawdads. U-m-m-m-m! Wanna go mud sloggin”?