METAIRIE, La.-- It's a culinary tradition for Donna Myers during this time of the year: a weekly purchase of crawfish.
"Anytime you can get crawfish, you've got to take advantage of it because it's seasonal," she said.
So far, though, this crawfish season is slow going, according to Pam Patrick of Captain Sid's Seafood in Bucktown. Patrick is selling crawfish for $4.75 a pound.
"People just don't want to pay that price," Patrick said. "It's just too high."
It is a similar story over at K-Jean's Seafood in Mid-City.
"It's hard to sell because they're $5 a pound," said Kenan Buchert, owner of K-Jean's Seafood. "I'm just working on hardly nothing and selling them for $3.49 a pound. That's to get customers in because it's not the boon time yet."
However, that time may be coming soon. Already crawfish sellers say more mudbugs -- and larger ones -- are becoming available.
"The crawfish are coming in, my men are coming in, more now than two weeks ago," Patrick said.
There are also hopes this crawfish season may benefit from some of the excess water that came through the Mississippi River and through the Atchafalaya Basin last year.
"We always try to get the wild crop from the Atchafalaya Basin," Buchert said. "Right now, most of them are coming from the ponds."
The only potential downside: climbing gas prices, which could affect the price of the mudbugs, depending on how far they have to travel to get to the marketplace. At Sid's, the crawfish come in from as far away as Abbeville and Pierre Part.
"So, they're paying extra to drive here and then with the gas so high, they have to get their mark-up too, which reflects on us," she said.
Yet, that isn't stopping some customers from making their mudbug purchase.
"They're always really, really good," Myers said. "I just tasted one -- they're juicy as can be."
Crawfish is a big business in Louisiana. It is estimated to have an annual economic impact on the state worth $125 million.
