We bought our yabby traps in Emerald at the tourist information centre. These are opera traps and although they aren't allowed in all states of Australia they are allowed in Queensland so long as they meet certain specifications and you have 4 or less per person.
Yabbies and Redclaw are types of freshwater crayfish. Redclaw shouldn't be in this area but they've been introduced and become quite common. Because of this if you catch a Redclaw, of any size, in these locations (not up North where they are native) then you are forbidden from throwing it back.
With the opera traps you throw them into the water with your chosen bait held inside, and check them every couple of hours. Nights should be better for this, but the Redclaw at Bundoora Dam didn't seem to mind day or night. Theories on which bait to use vary: dog biscuits, lettuce leaves, cooked sweet potato, any leftover dinner scraps. Redclaw are vegetarians but you can catch them with meat flavours as they try to remove it from the water. Yabbies like meat.
Redclaw is the preferred catch. They are much larger and the flavour is probably better too.
We didn't have much luck with our pots but we got plenty of Redclaw. At Bedford Weir we happened to catch a fish. At Bundoora we caught 2 Redclaw but got a nice feed when the man camped beside us gave us maybe a dozen more. He also showed us how to snap their heads off and de-vein them before freezing them.
Look carefully, in the left side you can see a Redclaw. Not a massive one, but okay.
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