I don't like crawdads so much as other shellfish, except in an etoufee.

My brothers and I spent innumerable hours walking ankle to thigh high in creeks to catch crawdads. Their flight is quick and bursty as would be expected from an animal that flips its tail for locomotion. Skittering from rock to crevice to crack, they move with surprising agility for such clumsy-looking critters. You can try to just snatch'em from behind, but a more effective way to catch the really little ones is to put one hand behind 'em and scare 'em with the other - they'll light right into your first hand. (Expect to be pinched.) Of course, would have to be a damned fool to try this with the bigger ones. If it's bigger than a few inches, the better approach is to distract it with the forward hand and sneak up with the rear hand, grabbing the abdomen behind the pinchers. It's a really good idea to avoid getting snapped by the really big ones. I don't recall any specific experiment in this regard, but I wouldn't be surprised if the chunkier fellows could squeeze off a fair portion of finger meat.

Sometimes we would make out at 7 or 8 in the morning, walk the creek the whole day, and empty them back out into the creek at night around 8 or 9 - hundreds of 'em. Even into our late teens, this was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday.

I doubt they're significantly smarter than houseflies, but they're very well-adapted for vacating dodge at the slightest hint of danger.

k