03-24-2015, 11:06 AM
quote:
Originally posted by gypsy69
Sounds like a great meal after a memorable day in Waipio valley. Please share your method of catching these river cockroaches and maybe a strange sighting or meeting? Going to take the family down soon for some valley and beach time, hope to score a few prawns myself.
Absolutely! I'm glad to help. A quick google search of tahitian prawn will give you some great images to work off of. There's no mistaking these things with their big awkward claw arms. Just to be safe though, go after the big'uns since apparently the smaller ones can be harder to distinguish from endemic species of freshwater prawn. Also they were kind of a bitch to peel, so you'll want the bigger ones anyway.
They are most active at night, so that's the best time to track them down. My method was to use a headlamp to find them (their eyes reflect), put the net behind them and then use a stick to scare them backwards into the net. They tend to hang out by the edges of the stream in spots with the least current.
Some people like to spear them, but they'll stay fresh longer if you catch them alive (though I'll admit it is kind of disturbing to separate and peel them while they are wiggling about).
A fellow that picked me up hitch-hiking the other day told me about a friend of his with a taro field that floods. This guy catches them and puts them in a little cage feeding them exclusively coconut for a couple days to flush out the nastiness, and make them coconut infused. An interesting idea that I might experiment with this weekend.
As others have mentioned there can be nasty things in the water, and the rocks are slippery. Avoid drinking the water, submersing open wounds, licking, eating, or rubbing the raw shrimp on your genitals, etc. I'm not a doctor though so consult with a medical professional before doing anything mentioned above.