Crawfish Outlook: Experts Have Great News for Texas Mudbug Lovers

How The Grinch Stole the 2024 Crawfish Season

Anyone in East Texas will tell that rejoicing does not end with the passing of the Christmas season. That's because the holidays are followed by crawfish season.

It usually begins in January and runs through most of the spring months. Crawfish boils and crawfish businesses are usually going full force by the time the Super Bowl rolls around.

But the 2024 crawfish season was one of the worst in history. You could try to blame the Grinch, but the 2023 drought in southern Louisiana was the biggest culprit. The lack of water and high heat produced a high mortality rate of crawfish brood stock.

This led to depleted crawfish farms, and if you were able to find crawfish for your boils, they were smaller than normal and double to triple the usual price.

Crawfish Outlook 2025

Things are looking much better for the upcoming crawfish season, and not just because there was nowhere to go but up.

According to a report, multiple experts are cautiously predicting that the 2025 crawfish season will make mudbug lovers very happy.

Normal to above-normal rainfall across Louisiana crawfish farms during the previous summer and fall months has led many to believe that strong harvests are on the horizon. Some restaurants in Louisiana have already started selling crawfish, and the prices are running about 50% lower than a year ago.

2024 Crawfish Season Was Not a Total Bust

Crawfish were sparse and expensive for the first three months of 2024, however, the supply did rebound a bit later in the season. I hosted a crawfish boil in April and the price of a 30-pound bag was a little over $100. It was nearly double that in January 2024.

Usually, in early January, the Agriculture Department at LSU issues the official outlook for the crawfish season. Hopefully, that report will echo this latest optimism.