PRAWNS
Prawns are easy to collect and one of the deadliest baits that you are ever likely to find, although finding them and then keeping them alive is another matter entirely.
A Great Bait for Wrasse
Prawns are found all around the British Isles. They are easy to collect, plentiful and attractive to a wide variety of species, including bass, pollack, black bream, wrasse, whiting, coalfish, gurnard, rays and pollack. They are a terrific bait, but despite this they are often overlooked, perhaps because it is rare that you can just walk into a tackle shop and buy as many prawns as you need.
Collecting prawns, however, is not difficult at all, though you do need a decent net. Whenever I buy a new net I spend an extra fiver or so and take it to a local leatherworker and tennis racket repairer. He then takes some of the tough plastic edging for tennis nets and stitches a protective sleeve all the way around the frame. This extends the life of the net considerably.
Once you have got your net you can find your prawns by wading around the edges of rocky patches on beaches, poking it into likely cracks and crannies, or by dangling a drop net from a harbour wall. You might even scrape the weedy patches on the sides of floating pontoons. All in all there are quite a lot of likely marks to choose from, some of which will be accessible twenty four hours a day. In Torbay, for example, there is nearly always somewhere - at least in the warmer months - where I can collect a day's supply of prawns in the space of an hour, regardless of the state of the tide.
If you are collecting your prawns by wading from a beach, then be prepared to arrive early, at least an hour before the bottom of the tide, preferably even earlier, and get wet. You will find more prawns in a reasonable depth of water than you will when it is shallow, since they will go out with the tide and come in with it later. Also, do not expect to get the best prawns from the rockpools themselves - everybody goes there!
If you can find a patch of rocks which never quite dries out then that is likely to offer better prawns in terms of both quantity and size. You will also find more prawns in areas without masses of floating weed. They are easier to gather because they are collected in a few places rather than dispersed through a cloud of uprooted weed.
Collecting prawns, however, is not difficult at all, though you do need a decent net. Whenever I buy a new net I spend an extra fiver or so and take it to a local leatherworker and tennis racket repairer. He then takes some of the tough plastic edging for tennis nets and stitches a protective sleeve all the way around the frame. This extends the life of the net considerably.
Once you have got your net you can find your prawns by wading around the edges of rocky patches on beaches, poking it into likely cracks and crannies, or by dangling a drop net from a harbour wall. You might even scrape the weedy patches on the sides of floating pontoons. All in all there are quite a lot of likely marks to choose from, some of which will be accessible twenty four hours a day. In Torbay, for example, there is nearly always somewhere - at least in the warmer months - where I can collect a day's supply of prawns in the space of an hour, regardless of the state of the tide.
If you are collecting your prawns by wading from a beach, then be prepared to arrive early, at least an hour before the bottom of the tide, preferably even earlier, and get wet. You will find more prawns in a reasonable depth of water than you will when it is shallow, since they will go out with the tide and come in with it later. Also, do not expect to get the best prawns from the rockpools themselves - everybody goes there!
If you can find a patch of rocks which never quite dries out then that is likely to offer better prawns in terms of both quantity and size. You will also find more prawns in areas without masses of floating weed. They are easier to gather because they are collected in a few places rather than dispersed through a cloud of uprooted weed.
Once you have collected your prawns, you are going to have to keep them alive. This is going to call for a bucket and an aerator. I used to buy expensive aerators but nowadays I make do with an inexpensive aerator from a local tackle shop. They only last a couple of years but are cheap to replace whenever I need a new one. Using them I can thread the tubing to the airstone through a hole in a bucket lid and seal the lid tightly in place. My car stays dry and the pump continues to work during the prawn's transportation, though it is essential that you put a few extra holes in the bucket lid for the air to escape. If you do not put these in then the pressure inside the bucket builds up and eventually stops the pump working.
A good tip is to throw away the airstone that comes with the aerator and buy yourself a wooden one from a pet shop or Ebay. Pop this inside a large swimfeeder before you connect it to the tubing and the swimfeeder will keep it on the bottom of the bucket, where the supply of air it releases is used to best effect.
Once you have transported your prawns safely to your fishing mark you will need to put them on a hook, which should be short in the shank and wide in the gape. Don’t be tempted to put several on one hook, however, for this doesn’t look natural and may alarm the fish. Simply put on one prawn, counting up three segments from the tail, and insert the hook from underneath and then up and through the shell. They are a deadly bait for wrasse, pollack, bass, flatfish and thornback rays.
A good tip is to throw away the airstone that comes with the aerator and buy yourself a wooden one from a pet shop or Ebay. Pop this inside a large swimfeeder before you connect it to the tubing and the swimfeeder will keep it on the bottom of the bucket, where the supply of air it releases is used to best effect.
Once you have transported your prawns safely to your fishing mark you will need to put them on a hook, which should be short in the shank and wide in the gape. Don’t be tempted to put several on one hook, however, for this doesn’t look natural and may alarm the fish. Simply put on one prawn, counting up three segments from the tail, and insert the hook from underneath and then up and through the shell. They are a deadly bait for wrasse, pollack, bass, flatfish and thornback rays.
Hook prawns by counting up two or three segments from the tail before inserting the hook from underneath and then up and through the shell.