photo by Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph Crawdaddy's Cajun Grill owner Kelly Morris cleans crawfish at his restaurant in Flint, Texas Monday Feb. 2, 2015. Morris expects high quantities and good sales for crawfish this year.

It’s a four-hour drive to Ville Platte, Louisiana, for Kelly Morris, co-owner of Crawdaddy’s Cajun Grill on Texas 155 in Flint. But the drive is worth time and effort as he hauls home bags of succulent crawfish.

The tasty little crustaceans are back, and after a disastrous year in 2014, crawfish restaurants and stands across East Texas are hoping for a better year.

“Last year was probably the worst crawfish season ever,” said Samantha Morris, who owns Crawdaddy’s with her husband. “With the harsh winter, they just burrowed down in the mud, trying to stay warm.”

In fact, it wasn’t until mid-February that crawfish became steadily available.

“It was after the Super Bowl but before Valentine’s Day,” Mr. Morris said.

Todd Sink, assistant professor and extension fisheries specialist at Texas A&M , explains that this year has been more mild, and the crawfish are responding accordingly.

“Crawfish are emerging from the burrows at the right time, so harvest is going well,” he said.

This year, Crawdaddy’s picked up its first bags on Dec. 2.

“We’re really hoping for a better year,” Ms. Morris said. “Because it’s pretty tough when you’re a crawfish restaurant and there’s no crawfish. Luckily we have other menu items and some pretty loyal customers.”

“I think it will be a banner year, a record year,” said her husband.

Demand is high, other area restaurants note. At the Crawfish Stand in Big Sandy, weekend customers cracked, squeezed and sucked their way through more than 200 bags of crawfish (each bag is about 30 to 35 pounds).

“It was Super Bowl weekend,” said Crawfish Stand and Circle M Crawfish owner Rodney Murphy. “We’re getting a good, early start this year. In fact, a lot of the (harvest) workers aren’t there yet, or there could be more crawfish. And the water is still a little bit cold. But it’s sure better than it was this time last year.”

Murphy hopes to continue selling crawfish steadily through the month of June.

 

REGIONAL DELICACY

Crawfish aren’t just consumed here; they’re also produced here, more and more. In addition to Caddo Creek Crawfish Farm in Frankston, big aquiculture (fish farming) projects are underway to help serve the state.

“We have two new operations going in, one to serve the Dallas and Tyler markets and one to serve the Corpus Christi market,” said Sink. “They’re both in the process of putting in ponds and levies right now.”

Still, Texas lags behind Louisiana in both production and consumption. Texas is the second largest U.S. producer, behind the Bayou State, Sink explained, but it’s a distant second. Texas produces between 5 and 10 percent of what Louisiana does. Texas eats an even smaller portion than that.

Still, it’s a regional favorite. Murphy, at the Crawfish Stand, has been in business for 20 years now.

“For the first four years, I had to give away about half (of what we made) because no one ate crawfish,” he said in a recent interview. “Now it seems like there’s one (crawfish stand) on just about every corner.”

 

INTERACTIVE

Crawdaddy’s Kelly Morris likes to point out how healthy crawfish is — “it’s all protein, there’s no unsaturated fat, it’s clean and it’s good for you,” he contends.

But more than that, he said, it’s an “interactive food.”

“That’s what people love about crawfish,” he said. It’s very interactive. There’s the whole ritual, of friends coming together over a big plate of crawfish, having some beer, talking and socializing. It brings friends together.”

Many of the region’s crawfish restaurants have picnic-style tables in addition to — or instead of — regular restaurant tables. That’s because a good crawfish boil is about community, Morris said.

“I just think crawfish brings a wide, wide variety of people together,” he said.

Crawfish season usually lasts through the start of summer, restaurateurs noted, but expanding demand for the regional crawfish, and the increasing availability of crawfish from California and even Oregon, could extend the season.

“But we’ve got them, and we’ve got them now,” Murphy said. “It’s going to be a good year.”