5 gallon square black bucket prawn traps!!??

[spillytalker]

hey guys, I have seen a few of these around, just curious if anyone on here has seen them before? If you have any, where did you get them? bought or made? I ask cause i am just curious how well they do?? and thinking about giving them a try if they are easy to make or cheap to buy!

 

[Last Chance]

A long time ago in COwichan Bay I couldn't make them work, but CHarlie White and apparantly someone from Uvic gave them two thumbs up. If they were so sh*t hot, you would have seen them stacked on the decks of the prawn boats this spring, they would be a lot cheaper then stainless traps.

Just my $0.02

They would be cheap like borscht to make. Go to Home Depot, get a $10 roll of that crap deer fence, stick a couple of black buckets together, cut the ends out, use the fence to make your trap ends, make a nice little door in either side, pull the doors together with whatever you have laying around, and try it.

Last Chance Fishing Adventures

www.lastchancefishingadventures.com
www.swiftsurebank.com

 

[Charter Tofino]

A buddy gave me some and they worked decently actually. If i remember correctly they outfished my commie trap.

 

[Fish Assassin]

Popeyes in N.Van sold them for a long time. They were cheap and they worked. The only thing I did to change them was I added more holes and a weight to get them down and hold them there. The extra holes also made it easier to pull them up as the water would flow thru them.

We built our own with laundry baskets.

 

[Last Chance]

Hmmm. Wonder what I was doing wrong. Whatever works I guess.

Last Chance Fishing Adventures

www.lastchancefishingadventures.com
www.swiftsurebank.com

 

[NikNak]

I have some, made them years ago with friends. They were a fun project to make, and they work well. They don't seem to fish as good as the wire traps I have most recently purchased, but they stack well. They have certainly caught a lot of prawns, and to this day I have a friend that will use nothing else.

If memory serves me correctly the buckets came from a factory on one of the islands near the Vancouver Airport. Perhaps someone can do some research to find a manufacturer name. We collectively bought a pallet of them.

We cut a square hole in the bottom of the buckets and used black plastic snow fencing to create cones that we attached to the inside of the buckets by "welding" the plastic together with a soldering gun.

Two buckets faced together hinged at one side made up the trap. We drilled one side of each bucket near the top and used tie wraps to act as the hinges, and the other side we drilled holes on one bucket and attached a slice of tube tire and SS wire to act as the mechanism to keep the buckets closed, face to face.

We drilled two holes in one bucket and fed a rope through to form a bridle and attached a halibut longline type of SS mechanism to attach to the main prawn line. Opposite to this side, on the inside of each bucket we attached a 2lb lead weight to weight the bucket, and to encourage it to lay on the bottom.

This is not the best description, but gives an idea. If anyone is strongly interested I could go out to my storage and get one and take a picture.

 

[o8andholding]

I find that these traps out fish the commercial ones as well. Not only that but they are way easier to pull. The only traps I have that work better are the rigid square ones, but they take up a lot of room. The bucket manufacturer recently moved to the fraser valley but I think that you can get them at Industrial plastics if you are willing to pay through the nose. I made some similar traps out of round buckets that I picked up for free. Just find two that nest together and weight one side.

 

[spillytalker]

well by the sounds of it, it looks like i will be making some black bucket prawn traps when i get home from camp in a week....give me something to do! thanks for all the information and input guys!!!

cheers!

 

[spring time]

I got mine at great west containers in tilbury island. ropak makes them but I think you need to by a lot. I cut the bottom out then uses tarred netting (redden net) then drilled holes in the bottom and used 4" zap straps to fastened to the bucket then what I did was drill a hole where the tunnel ends on both sides and put some rubber on the end of the tunnel through the hole the attach a plastic hook so that in turns attaches to the bottom of the other bucket to hold your tunnel open and the buckets together they work well but not as well as the commercial ones I think white one out fish the black ones.

 

[Gridlessness]

Hey All,

I've stalked this site a few times and found it very helpful but never had much to contribute.... until now! I know this thread is super old but in my quest for a cheap, efficient, DIY prawn trap it was the most credible source of intel. The short is; we made 5 gallon round bucket traps. They worked great.

We are pretty new at it so don't expect seasoned insider type of information but we made a video so you can determine yourself if you like the general idea. For sure there are a few things to improve, notably the weight. I think a clip on weight in the 5lb range would have worked perfect for our situation (little to no current).

Thanks to everyone for contributing info here, goes to show that even 9 years later others may benefit.

You can check out our video here, we show a little about the making and a bit more about the catching! (and also a little silliness, feel free to skip by the BS

Thanks, Jeff Rose and the girls

 

[wildmanyeah]

Hey All,

I've stalked this site a few times and found it very helpful but never had much to contribute.... until now! I know this thread is super old but in my quest for a cheap, efficient, DIY prawn trap it was the most credible source of intel. The short is; we made 5 gallon round bucket traps. They worked great.

We are pretty new at it so don't expect seasoned insider type of information but we made a video so you can determine yourself if you like the general idea. For sure there are a few things to improve, notably the weight. I think a clip on weight in the 5lb range would have worked perfect for our situation (little to no current).

Thanks to everyone for contributing info here, goes to show that even 9 years later others may benefit.

You can check out our video here, we show a little about the making and a bit more about the catching! (and also a little silliness, feel free to skip by the BS

Thanks, Jeff Rose and the girls

wow great video thanks for sharing, better then some of the fishing shows on check

 

[Pippen]

Rose......saw this video on HBC this morning, another great one! Love the videos you and your family put together.

MB_Boy

 

[Sentinel]

Nice video! They must have used all their buckets for traps and had to use what looks like the bailing jug to put the prawns in lol. A couple things come to mind from years of prawning with many types of traps. I would definitely use square buckets and weight them to be as heavy as practical. Prawns will not go in a trap that is moving around. The round buckets would tend to want to roll around on bottom . In an area with little or no current you probably could get away with the lightly weighted round bucket traps but most of the areas I prawn have pretty good currents. Just my .02 cents, good luck!

 

[saltcod]

Back in the 70's a friend of mine made some prawn traps out of pvc sewer pipe. It was as I remember, at least 16" diameter. A funnel at each end. We fished them in Clio Bay, near Kitimat. Caught the largest prawns I had ever seen, still to this date. The meat was, behind the head, an inch across.