NATCHEZ — When the Super Bowl weekend rolls around every year, local businesses see a big spike in the sales of snacks and party supplies.

But in the Miss-Lou, that spike includes something beyond chips, dip and beer — crawfish.

“This weekend, Super Bowl Sunday is kind of the kickooff for the season, especially this year, because Super Bowl Sunday is falling the weekend before Mardi Gras, and then you go straight into Lent from there,” C&M Crawfish co-owner Shannon Melton said. “And in Louisiana, Lent is crawfish.”

This time of year, locals have a kind of mudbug madness. Whether it’s as part of a backyard party or a seafood replacement during a season of abstinence from meat, crawfish can be big business for commercial boilers this time of year.

“Ride by here on a Friday or Saturday night, and we’re going to have lines,” Melton said.

In fact, business was so good in the lead-up to the unofficial kickoff to the season that C&M had to make an emergency run to South Louisiana Friday afternoon to pick up more crawfish for the weekend.

And after the weekend rush, C&M plans to expand from their Vidalia location and open a second stand in Natchez, at the intersection of U.S. 61 and 84.

But while this weekend is the kickoff of the season in many people’s minds, crawfish sales started earlier this year. Many years, the crawfish aren’t ready until mid-to-late February. Rushing them can mean a less pleasing overall experience.

“To me, the perfect size to boil and eat is a good medium,” Melton said. “You get them too small, and — well — theyre’ small, and when you get them too large, they don’t hold the seasoning correctly. So we look at where we buy from to get the from regions where we can get a good mix of medium and large.”

Crawfish need a combination of the right temperatures and the right amount of rain to grow, and this year’s warm El Nino weather provided that mix before they would normally be available.

“We started in January, and we are probably going to go until the end of July,” Mister Whisker’s Winston May said. “That is when everybody wants them — business is really good, supply is good and the size is good.”

In C&M’s case, they only went five weeks without crawfish between the end of last year’s season and the start of this year.

“We had a little different year last year — we started in January and went until the weekend after Labor Day, and then we had them back Nov. 2,” Melton said. “We started picking up and seeing brisk crawfish sales after Thanksgiving.”

The supply making its way to the Miss-Lou right now is straight out of Acadiana, Cajun country.

“Ours are South Louisiana crawfish, because that is where that sweet tasting crawfish comes from, Mamou and Eunice-area crawfish,” May said. “They start first every year, and they are the last ones to stay in.”

From here, the crawfish business will grow until March or April when it will meet a fever pitch.

And while boiled sales are popular, business will nearly always be half live sales.

“You just reach a certain point in the season where people want to boil, because it is good recreational fun,” Melton said.

“From the standpoint of crawfish in general, I think it is so engrained in the culture here that, if they can afford it, people are going to do it. It is something cultural, something that people crave, and we have some customers that I see every day.”

A good sunny day is all many people need to decide to head to the crawfish stand, May said.

“People just want to get out and boil,” he said. “We’ve got tons of (live sales) booked for this weekend, for Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl. We are just about overbooked. Those crawfish are selling like fire.”

Other places selling live and boiled crawfish include Cajun Rice House and BB’s Specialty Meats and Seafood.