catching prawns

whats the best way of catching prawns or shrimps for live bait

tesco's

adsa

etc

easier and quicker

plus frozen or fresh

sorry they wouldn't be any good for LIVE bait....

must read thread properly first

i dint think they lived in the freezer

I once caught quite a few usinga fine mesh 44" landing net on the beach but I can't remember where it was.

NB. I remember the net was made from a couple of hollowfibreglassboat rod tips with bolts insterted in the base to fit a standard spreader block.with netting bought from a shop.

Used to put a fine mesh deep spoon net on a long rope and bung in some chopped up makarol or pilchard and drop it down the side of the sea wall. Pulled up every 20 mins or so it only took 2or 3 drops and i always had more then enough for my session. Keep in a bucket with one of those little air pumps on.

If you live on the coast thenask the local crab and lobster fishermen to save the prawns and shrimps that they find in their pots then find out what time they'll be coming back with their catch and wait for them with a bucket of aerated sea water.

If you can't get live prawns then try using small shore crabs(they don'thave to be soft shell) about 3/8th to 1/2of an inch across the shell. Hook them through the edge of the shell and fish them just off the bottom otherwise they'll bury into the sand or mud. I've had cod, whiting, bass, plaice and smoothhounds on them. Most sea fish have strong enough throat teeth to crunch them and I've caught cod with their stomachs full of whole ones, some almost 2 inches across the shell.

Lots of live bait on the sea shore. It's just knowing where to look.

Try a pushnet if you are looking on a sandy beach, in a harbour or marina try a prawn trap,

I have a colapsible one bought on E-bay for less than a tenner, rock pools can be fished

using a kids tiddler net.

good info chaps, will help me with some bass fishing on holiday ,thanks

As teenagers, we used to get ours from the outer Cobb in Lyme Regis.

We used a 2m ring of mild steel rod (the concrete reinforcement type) with a muslin sheet across it. In the middle we'd tie a mackerel, with its guts hanging out. Left in the water for an hour, we'd get plenty enough to sell to the local fishmonger.

We stopped netting them after we found a dead woman floating in the sea. We were very adult about it. We tied a leg off on our painter and rowed the body back to the Cobb. It all fell apart when a local fisherman arrived with a bucket and shook the shrimps out of her skull!

You might try an adaptation of the creel. We started a system, which still flourishes in Lyme Regis today, some 50 years later. We made our own creels with defunct orange boxes and scrounged offcuts of chicken netting. The weights were a couple of bricks cemented in the bottom and the floats and lines were the results of our beach combing. You always get loadsa shrimps where you find crabs and lobsters.

All you need to do is to line the creel with muslin cloth, to catch the little jiggers

Now. If you make the trap entry very small, say just 1/2" across...... and maybe use several in the creel, then you will not get any large visitors. Bait it up with ripe fish guts and away you go!

Just check that you do not need a license for the creel!