AN AVID fisherman from Malmesbury is boiling up a delicious dinner after being awarded a license to catch crayfish from the River Avon.

Tone Rudall received his license from the Environment Agency earlier this month allowing him to fish for North American signal crayfish from a weir in his back garden.

He said he was inspired to start fishing for the small crustaceans after spotting a father and his children fishing for them while walking by the river.

“Just realising that they were there and you could eat them made me fascinated to try and catch them for myself ”, said Tone.

“We just go to the end of the garden and dangle a net over the weir with bacon as bait and within minutes we’ve caught some.”

The American species has decimated numbers of native British white-clawed crayfish in recent years and Tone likened the struggle between the two crayfish as mirroring the fight between grey and red squirrels.

“These crayfish seem to be taking over all our rivers”, he said.

“I think they were brought over here to provide a means of fishing for crayfish that was going to be productive in this country but they escaped.”

“The Yankee intruders are bigger, more aggressive and vicious and are wiping out the native population”, said Tone.

Tone has had a few scrapes with the small lobster like animals himself.

About three weeks ago he accidently got his finger nipped by a crayfish’s giant claws, which drew blood.

His revenge is a dish best served hot.

“I just boil up some water and drop them straight in, as soon as you do the colour brightens up into a reddish-brown like lobsters”, said Tone.

“They taste ok, you don’t get a lot of meat out of them but like prawns and lobsters I like to nibble them with some mayonnaise.”