Pulling hand fulls of big rusty's out of your net can hurt quite a bit, but just embrace it, and feel the pain.

I have to disagree with mywan a little here. In my experience, at least some crayfish species have a reflex reaction to clamp down on anything they feel between their pincers when they are agitated. I certainly have had no problem getting them to clamp down and hang on to a small twig or other object, and I've seen it with fingers too. I saw one guy carelessly put his finger within the pincer of a large crayfish. The crayfish clamped down, and the guy had to fling it off with a lot of force. It cracked his fingernail and drew a little blood.

The way I would get them to pinch would be to get them on the bank in a defensive posture and simply stick my finger in their pincher. They would sometimes clamp down long enough to lift them off the ground but wouldn't stay clamped when long enough to lift them more than a couple feet off the ground. After a few tries is would be nearly impossible to get them to pinch at all.

If the pincher tips get just a little skin I can see that maybe it could be somewhat painful and maybe draw a bit of blood, but is extremely unlikely to happen when you haven't corner them. I find it hard to imagine that one actually broke a fingernail. Then again I can ram my excessive long fingernails into the wall, or scape paint with it, without breaking it. Many people have to be really careful if they want to avoid accidentally breaking a fingernail.

Regardless, if you are just wading the chances getting pinched is near zero, and a good thorn is both more likely and a bigger hazard even if it did happen.

mywan,

Your crayfish may simply be wussies? Crayfish further south I have seen were more runners than fighters.

May be. Grew up in east Texas and now live in north Georgia. Just never thought of getting pinched by one as anything more than a joke. I've seen people do more damage to themselves when pinched than the crayfish did.

I'm sure your experience is typical of many crayfish species. It seems that the particular species that cracked my friend's fingernail has an unusually strong pinch.