Prawns as bait

[Graham Braithwaite]

I'm making a belated return to fishing this week after around 10 years away, and I'll be fishing a local pond stocked mainly with Carp and Tench and various silver fish.

I was advised by a work colleague that prawns are a good bait for just about any fish, and he said that Tench, in particular, love them. The same gent also advised me to roughly break down a bag of sweetcorn in the blender and to roll them into balls as a kind of groundbait.

Could anyone advise me, please, whether they've used either of these methods, and/or whether they think they might possibly work?

 

[Another Dave]

Prawns are great for getting past the tiddlers. I use them on those hooks that have a pellet band haired to them.

 

[108831]

In the main,virtually anything works, on its day,the biggest issue with prawns that I found is that anything eats em,how the hell a two ounce roach gets a whole prawn in instantly,or two in a fraction longer amazes me...

Welcome to FM Graham by the way.

 

[ian g]

Graham , I used to fish a local pond for tench using mussels as bait . They were around a £1 a bag from Tesco . The tench loved them . Nothing fancy just a size 8 hook and and a whole mussel as bait , just the meat not the shell. As your work mate says prawns will catch tench so give them a go.

 

[barbelboi]

As Alan posted above ' anything eats em' so it's can be very difficult to be species selective. In the past I've found that, especially early season, they can be deadly for tench but often everything else goes for them as well - including snotties. So, for some years now, I have tended to avoid them and use baits that are more likely to catch what I'm after...................

 

[valetudoguy]

I wouldn't look past brandling worms, sweetcorn and maggots in this scenario, I would make a basic bread crumb ground bait too.

I personally keep the prawns for specimen Perch.

 

[xenon]

All I seem to catch on prawns are eels-big ones though, if you like that sort of thing

 

[conditor]

I fished them last week on one our club waters, it was slow a couple of small perch, ended up switching to double dead reds,ended up with t carp, and some good skimmers,..as for the rest of the bag of prawns, made an enjoyable dinner, at £4.25 a bag if the fish didn’t want em I definitely was

 

[103841]

The current record perch was caught on prawn. It’s funny, some waters the bait is successful, other waters not so.

 

[ian g]

The current record perch was caught on prawn. It’s funny, some waters the bait is successful, other waters not so.

Exactly what I found with prawns and mussels , not sure why but definitely the case

 

[Lark]

Graham,
If you do use prawns, take a handful out and chop them, not too fine, but into small pieces.
If you then mix them with a slice of blitzed, white bread, some paprika and or Cayenne pepper, you've got a great, cheap bait for chucking out as freebies with your hook bait in thumb-nail sized offerings (don't compress them too tight!).
You can also dry off your hook bait prawns a bit, put them into a bag with some paprika and cayenne and shake them up a bit. Adds a little bit of colour and 'zing'.

 

[Jeff Woodhouse]

Had one of our members (will be an association bailiff in the new season) on the phone this morning and he was telling me how he's had a load of prawns and prawn heads in the fridge for a few weeks now - hopefully in sealed containers!.. He reckons they'll be brilliant for the barbel come Sunday.

 

[barbelboi]

Could well be Jeff, live minnows were also very successful also early season...................

 

[Lark]

He reckons they'll be brilliant for the barbel come Sunday.

Brilliant roughly chopped with hemp/hali crush in stick mixes or cage feeder Jeff.

 

[shane99]

Everything likes a prawn I have found, couldnt get one through the marauding small Roach the other morning. I was wondering why the float wouldnt settle, stood up for a look & the roach were playing ping pong with it ! Tried shotting down to the hook but there were so many I had to move..

Had success when I have thawed them out put them in a bag with krill powder & froze them again.You dont smell great when you get home though. ...