warning for new prawners

T

the runt

Active Member
My son and i were B.S. the other day and he reminded me of a bad day.We were prawning in 250 ft. of water along a shelf.not relizing it dropped to about 450 about 20 to 30 yds away.He was letting the line out, letting it slide through his hands at a fast but controlled pace.At about 150 ft. the trap took off fast,couldn't even slow it down I told him to clear the rope check his feet and get out of there.Throwing the last twenty ft. overboard.If any of that rope caught him or the boat he would drown or capsize the boat,and i was in a 19 glassply.ALWAYS HAVE A KNIFE CLOSE BYE.run a circle in the area so you can see a drops.remember i'm talking between 5-7 secs.My bright bouy was outta site in clear water.Watch your feet.

thanks the runt
 
Thanks for the info. As soon as this weather improves (what at run on storms right now!) I'm hoping to get out there with my 2 young'uns and try out the 2 new prawn traps I got for X-mas...total rookie dropping them in the Yellowpoint-Ladysmith area...I'll pay close attention to your warning. Last time I dropped a trap was out of a kayak in the Charlottes in the late 80's. Lucky we had lost of line on and boy did it take off on the drop. And bringing it up took easy 1+ hour of gutwrenching pulls between the two of us. Felt like we had half the ocean's prawns in there. Got it finally to the surface and not a single frigging thing! On a boat this time and some mechanical advantage & better luck I hope!
 
What do you think made the trap take off like that? Sounds kind of scary to me.
 
Wondering the same thing???????????? LOCH NESS????????

Wolf
 
what would have made it drop so fast? seal? scary. thanks for the heads up

To fish or not to fish,
What a stupid question!
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he will sit on a boat drinking beer for a life time :D
TGIF =Thank God It Floats
 
Come on Runt cough it up, don't keep us in the dark... Daaa Dum !!!

BROKENROD
WEST COAST FREEK
 
do you mean tent island of of chemainus?

To fish or not to fish,
What a stupid question!
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he will sit on a boat drinking beer for a life time :D
TGIF =Thank God It Floats
 
yea thats a good reliable place.. if you have the chart for the area anotehr place to drop is just east of that reef/island thing south of tent, theres a deep, small hole a couple hunfred meters off. If you drop it right on that hole theres a boat load of prawns waiting beneath. ive had best results dropping beside/on the "invisible" line drawn from the commercial traps, because they will drop right on the drop off.

To fish or not to fish,
What a stupid question!
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he will sit on a boat drinking beer for a life time :D
TGIF =Thank God It Floats
 
It's area of some extreme current, i think i got caught up in.also i wasn,t on bottom like i thought i was.Patos island is close to saturna.just on the u.s. side.The chart i was using warns about extreme currents. tumbo and saturna has some nasty stuff also.

thanks the runt
 
I had the same thing happen to me in a spot near Sidney...I was in 175' of water, with 250' of line on the traps. I lowered the first trap until it hit bottom, tossed the float over the side and moved on to set the next. The second trap was almost on the bottom when my wife pointed at the first float, which was going under. The second trap hit bottom, so I tossed the float over and we went back to the site of the first, arriving in time to still be able to see the submerged float, but it was too deep to snag with the boathook. We looked back towards the second trap, only to see that it, too, was vanishing below the surface. Several hours of dragging around the area with a line down 60' (tied between our two downriggers) and searching at low slack and downstream of the original location were fruitless. Watch those tidal flows!!

Paul
 
Don't cheap out on to short of lines or to small of scotchman floats.The shape of the float allows water to flow around it and not submerge it in a tide.I have learned this the hard way.I also clip on a cannon ball on the end of a string but in front of the traps in areas that I have had to chase my traps to get them back.Also pick a float that is big enough to support the whole string if it does get dragged away into greater depths than you have line for or they are gone to Davey Jones locker!
Kronic_fisherguy



Edited by - kronic_fisherguy on 01/07/2006 09:25:41
 
ive never lost a trap to depth, but more than once ive found them 500m from where ive dropped them in 600ft of water floating:D

To fish or not to fish,
What a stupid question!
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and he will sit on a boat drinking beer for a life time :D
TGIF =Thank God It Floats
 
Kronic is right,I lost 2 pots a few yrs.ago.now i use only the med. size ball.They won't go under,you can also see it a mile away, keeps the thieves at bay, Places like alberni inlet would work good for the little yellow ones,they do save space.

thanks the runt
 
O.K, I Don't believe it but i just completly Chowdered two traps on one string. I went out and dropped the traps in satelite chanel on the way to do some winter spring fishing today. Dropped them in 250' with 350'of line. The only problem is the current picked up on a heavy ebb while fishing and the smaller sized scottsman float sucked under. So after circling around my waypoint in the silty looking water from what must be a very blown out cowy river, in the twilight hour with no float in site. We laughed are asses off had a pop and headed for home. Guess im going out tommorow at slack to look again...
 
Got into a few, Three to the boat but 2 were well under the 62cm size limit for area 18 and one was just barley on the mark. I let it swim as i have too much fish in the freezer anyway. Not bad for the area. All in all it was worth it though as my belly is full of fresh Dunginess, burp!!! and i did'nt have to drive 30 min to sooke.
 
Sound like a newb show to me maddog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obvious you didnt take heed to other people on the forum to use bigger floats like most people do LOL LOL and where you live i think sooke is furter than a half hour!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wolf




Edited by - wolf on 01/10/2006 19:10:35
 
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