By Ashley White
Lafayette Daily Advertiser
Winter weather temporarily froze crawfish harvesting and its market, but spring weather has started to melt away the effects as the catch and size increase.
The arctic air brought freezing temperatures, power outages and water-access issues across most of Louisiana. As a result, many of Acadiana's ponds had a thin layer of ice on the surface.
At the mud line, where crawfish grow, the temperature dropped to about 35 degrees, causing the cold-blood crustaceans metabolism to slow dramatically, said Mark Shirley, LSU AgCenter aquaculture specialist.