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23 (eating fish eggs) as well as damaging fishing nets. 113 In Europe, they have been bad news/good news. The North American crayfish imported into Europe brought crayfish plague which has virtually wiped out the natives in many areas. So the commercial fisheries for the native crayfish have been wiped out (negative) only to be replaced by the alien crayfish (positive). 113 IDENTIFICATION Crayfish guides often include a key to aid in identification. In this publication, since we only have five species, I did develop a key which is located at the end of the document but you could also use the photographs in the species accounts to help you identify them. Note that if you have a crayfish that just doesn't seem to match the photos, then you may have something new and you should look for an expert to help identify it. COLLECTING CRAYFISHES There are quite a few of ways to collect a crayfish. You can roll rocks at the edge of a waterbody and look for crayfishes underneath. You can put a gob of worms on a hook and lower it into the water. After a bit, slowly raise it up and see if a crayfish is holding on. You can use dip nets or seines or traps to collect crayfishes. [The types of nets and traps that are legal are listed in the Fishing Guides published annually by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.] We will go though some collection techniques: Seines: Seines up to 20 feet long and four feet deep with ¼ inch(or larger) mesh are legal. Three people needed. In streams, the best technique is for two people to take the poles on the ends of the seine and anchor t he seine in one place. A third person goes upstream and dislodges crayfish out of their cover and chase them downstream into the seine. Kicknets: A kicknet is a really short seine about three feet square with poles on two sides. It is usually used to collect bugs but will also catch crayfish. It is sized so that one person can handle it by anchoring it downstream of some promising habitat. A second person works upstream of the net, dislodging (kicking) crayfish down into it. Dip nets: A dip net has to have a length and width less than 36 inches with ¼ inch (or larger) mesh. One person can anchor this on the bottom and kick crayfish into the net or a person can use it to sweep through promising habitat. Traps: Any legal minnow trap can be used to catch crayfish. You may have to use bait of some kind. Some of the best baits to use are fresh fish or fish innards. One note on trapping is that crayfish will not go near bait that has gone "bad" or is Seining for crayfish