Three men have been fined £285 apiece for taking crayfish from a pond on London’s Hampstead Heath. The three East European men were caught withb two carrier bags loaded with red swamp crayfish. Though the crayfish are a pest, it is an offence to remove or harm the crayfish under Hampstead Heath by-laws. Anglers should note that it is also illegal to set traps for  American signal crayfish, which are now common in the south of England. Here’s what the Environment Agency says. “Because the traps and fyke nets commonly used to catch crayfish are ‘fixed engines’ as defined by the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act (1975), the use of these instruments to catch crayfish is an offence under Section 6 of the Act. So while fishing for crayfish is legal, unless crayfish traps are authorised by byelaws, their use is illegal, even where they are used within a site registered as a fish farm.” So you would have to get a by-law passed to remove signal crayfish from your own fishery. It’s a mad, mad world…