So here I am on my first prawn adventure, not really knowing what I'm doing. I've got a trap, float, some yum yum bait, weights and an anchor,and yet nothing to show for it. I dropped my set up in approx 300' of water and let it soak for almost 7 hours. While I'm thinking perhaps I was in the wrong bottom type, maybe I had misjudged the tides and the current was too strong. Can anyone help me out with a few pointers? Like what kind of tides, bottom type and features I'm looking for to set my trap upon? Really, anything would be a benefit at this point.
Cheers
You can catch prawns through all the tides dependent somewhat on how strong of currents are effecting the exact location your trap is in. Prawns and Shrimp are small creatures and move with short bursts of energy so for them fighting a strong current to come out of their dwellings to find food isn't worth the energy loss so picture yourself being them. You'd want to travel to forage for food when it's easiest on your right? So fishing for Prawns and Shrimp can be more rewarding with less of a current. Prawns like rocky bottoms with rock ledges and cliffs leading down to more rocky bottoms while shrimp like sandy and muddy bottoms. You can check the ocean charts to see where those types of bottoms are to better match the habitat the species you are fishing for.
You say you "have an anchor" do you mean for your trap or for your boat or?? Not sure how that is relevant to Prawning? You should have a weight at the very end of your line, then put the trap up the line approx 10 feet from the weight, then up the line another 10 feet or so put another weight. This will "pin" the trap down on the ocean bottom. If the trap is moving around up the water column off the bottom too much don't expect to be catching much.
If you have 300 feet of line don't fish in water that is more than about 220 feet deep. You have to take into consideration several things; for one trap you need about 20 to 25' of line laying on the bottom with your trap and weights, then you need enough extra line to account for a rising and falling tide, then you need enough extra line to account for current drag on the line. Also make sure your float is big enough to float your whole set up in case everything floats off a ledge or it gets pulled off by a tug/barge etc.. You can test that set up and float by going in deeper water than your line is and tying a tag line from your float to your boat. Put the whole set out and see if it floats while holding on to the tag line (or tie it to your boat and watch if it wants to sink or not) If it goes under water you know you need a bigger float. And you don't have to drop your whole set up to hang down when testing if the float will hold it all. You can just bundle up your rope, weights etc in the trap it's self and just hang that below the float for testing. That way you don't have to pull it all back in again. An even easier way is to just weigh your whole set up on land ahead of time then test the float with that amount of weight of anything like canon balls or whatever to see if your float can support it. It's pretty impressive how much weight a large scotchman can hold. I run about 30 lbs of weight with two traps on each line and lead line of 400' and my scotchmans can float the whole set ups with no problem. But there's a lot of guys out there using very small floats with their setups that won't save them if they float off their mooring cause they will get dragged under and float off into the sunset.
If you want to catch a lot of prawns you should add some extra scents to prawn pellets. They work "ok" on their own but with some added sardine, herring, or other fish oils you will find you catch a lot more. The oils leave a scent trail that the Prawns follow to the bait.
7 hr soak doesn't say much about whether or not you should have caught something. The current, tides, ocean bottom type, area you were fishing in, depth in relation to the surrounding contours, type of bait, and how much weight you had with your trap are more important factors to know why or why you didn't catch any prawns. Prawning is very good right now. If you were in a good spot with good bait, using the right techniques then you should be catching some. So some part of the equation you are dealing with isn't correct. It takes time to get all the things down good but once you start catching them then you will see why it is you are. If you find octopus in your traps but hardly any Prawns then you are in the right areas and it's likely the octopus cleaned out a lot of the prawns from the trap.