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Down in the bayous of southwestern Louisiana, it's crawfish season. "Hot Boiled Crawfish" scrawled on blackboards outside restaurants, drive-through "boiling points" and crawfish étouffée on every menu are sure signs it's spring in Cajun country - when those little crustaceans crawl up out of the dark water, into the sunshine - and into the pot.

The season starts in February and continues until June, with the big boils and festivals taking place within the next month. Serious Cajun wannabes can even sign up for the crawfish eating contest at the 48th annual Crawfish Festival, May 2-4 in Breaux Bridge.

Southwestern Louisiana is as flat as Saskatchewan but not nearly as dry; in fact, as you head south, solid ground quickly gives way to the boggy wetlands of the Atchafalaya Basin, which is where crawfish live in the wild.

But because of oil exploration, pipelines, canals and other developments that are destroying Louisiana's wetlands - it's estimated that 75 square kilometres are lost each year - the crawfish industry has moved onto the farm, specifically off-season rice fields. Crawfish are "seeded" into the fields before the rice is planted in the spring, and the adults burrow into the mud before the fields are drained. After the rice harvest, the fields are flooded again in the fall and a new crop of mudbugs emerges, to be caught in conical wire traps.

Most of the crawfish consumed in the United States come from Louisiana, and 85 per cent of the harvest comes from farms - more than 100 million pounds a year.

A sack of live crawfish weighs 30 to 40 pounds - big mesh bags filled with scrabbling critters. The price bounces between 50 cents and $2 a pound, depending on supply, demand and size. The wild catch is down this year, keeping prices high, but not as high as in 2006: After hurricanes Katrina and Rita smacked into the rural southwest, crawdads were scarce, with a 35-pound sack costing $100 instead of the usual $25.

Also known as crayfish, crawdads, mudbugs, crawdaddies and les écrevisses, most of the crawfish consumed here is of the "red swamp" or "white river" variety, an eight-centimetre-long creature that looks exactly like a scale-model Nova Scotia lobster. Little wonder the displaced Acadians (a.k.a. Cajuns) embraced them as their own.

And much like their ocean-dwelling cousins, Louisiana mudbugs can be prepared and devoured in myriad ways:

A three-pound platter

In Cajun country, a three-pound platter of boiled crawfish is an appetizer. Most cooks estimate about five pounds a person for a meal, but local men claim they can eat 10.

Mudbugs are purged in salt water and rinsed with a garden hose before they're boiled with lemons and spices in big outdoor cauldrons set on portable propane burners, then tossed into a cooler for 10 minutes to steam. Pour the whole soggy mess on a picnic table covered with newspapers and dig in.

There's not much to eat in a two- or three-inch mudbug - and it takes some time to get at it. You have to break the crawfish in half, then pinch the tail and pull out a sliver of sweet meat. Repeat - many times. Incidentally, a pound of tail meat has only 80 calories.

Better on a bun

Order up a crawfish po' boy - the submarine sandwich of these parts. The best po' boys - like the ones at Neptune's Café in Elton - are served on a soft baguette and stuffed with sliced tomatoes, crunchy lettuce and golden, deep-fried crawfish tails. This is the easiest way to eat your crawdads, because someone else does the peeling and you'll barely recognize the bug under all that batter.

Another amazing way to combine your bread and crawfish is the pistolette, a crusty roll that has been partly hollowed out, deep-fried (of course) and filled with a scoop of creamy crawfish étouffée, that classic Cajun stew thickened with spicy brown roux. Addictive and perfectly done at Steamboat Bill's in Lake Charles.

Straight from the pot

A crawfish boil is always a serious party. The secret is the spice mixture that goes into the water - a recipe your average Cajun guards like the family jewels. Most cooks doctor up commercial boil mixes like Zatarain's, which always contain copious amount of cayenne pepper. Crawfish farmer Burt Tietje admits that ground cloves is what makes his boil special.

Hit the boiling point

In crawfish season, temporary boiling points pop up on back roads across southern Louisiana. These are basic drive-through crawdad stands, where you can pick up a 10-pound paper bag of steaming crawfish, spiced up with lemon and seasoning, for a feast at home - or in your car, for that matter. The set-up is simple: rows of giant steel vats of boiling water and spice, and hand-cranked rigs that lower full sacks of crawfish into the drink, then haul them back out when they're bright red. Get 'em while they're hot.

Fancy schmancy

At casual local restaurants, like Nott's Corner in Lake Arthur, the fried eggplant pirogue is a divine dish, topped with a creamy scoop of crawfish étouffée. This is about as fancy as crawfish cuisine gets, but there's also crawfish bisque and even crawfish cocktail. Get serious and order the platter, a combination plate of crawfish tails fried in crispy batter, crawfish pies (turnovers) filled with spicy bits of mudbug meat, and piles of local rice topped with an étouffée of tender tail meat and sauce.

Gumbo ya ya

Gumbo is synonymous with family gatherings in Cajun country, and nothing says rural Louisiana like a seafood gumbo loaded with Gulf shrimp, crabmeat and, of course, crawfish tails.

To make it from scratch, start with a roux. In Jennings, the Southern Bar-B-Que company makes roux in a jar and sells it at Wal-Mart, where you'll also find frozen, peeled crawfish tails.

Or enjoy a thick bowl of home-style seafood gumbo at Cajun Tales Seafood Restaurant in Welsh, where they also serve fried alligator, crawfish cocktail and étouffée.

The mudbugs and the beer

After a couple of cool Abita Ambers (the craft beer down here), it's really easy to suck back a mudbug, enjoying all the bright yellow "fat" and juicy spices that lie within. C'est si bon!

Pack your bags

Where to eat

Neptune's Café Elton; 337-584-3264

Nott's Corner Lake Arthur; 337-774-2332

Cajun Tales seafood Restaurant Welsh; 337-734-4772

Steamboat Bill's Lake Charles; 332-494-1070

Pujo Street Café Lake Charles; 337-439-2054

Where to stay

L'Auberge du Lac Casino Resort Lake Charles; 866-580-7444; http://www.ldlcasino.com

More information

Southwest Louisiana Convention & Visitors Bureau http://www.visitlakecharles.org

Jeff Davis Parish Tourist Commission http://www.jeffdavis.org