Netting prawns a skill well worth mastering

The catching process for prawns when you’re in a boat sounds simple — you motor around until you see prawns on your sounder, then throw your cast net over them.

DEEDI states that While holidays and weekends provide a great time to cast a net for some bait and prawns, recreational fishers are reminded to check their nets to ensure they comply with the rules. Billy Akebisu throws a legal Bait Net at the Barron River Mouth . Pic Tom Lee

The catching process for prawns when you’re in a boat sounds simple — you motor around until you see prawns on your sounder, then throw your cast net over them.

Unfortunately, it is a little more difficult than that.

Identifying prawns on your sounder from catfish schools, jellyfish and weed takes a bit of experimenting and experience.

Depending on your brand and type of sounder, prawns usually come up as a mass just off the bottom, often looking like a low flying cloud.

Once you’ve learnt to identify schools, you then need to learn how to throw a cast net, which is best done by watching some of the hundreds of YouTube demos available online as well as getting lots of ­practice.

Try a few different casting styles. It’s better to master a method that seems easy to you than to be forced into learning a way that feels awkward.

Next, you have to learn when to cast, which is more difficult than you think, and not necessarily when you see the prawns on your sounder.

On most boats the transducer is located on the transom, so casting when you see the prawns on your sounder is after you’ve gone past them.

The trick is to know how fast your net sinks and how far it drifts from where it first hits the water till it reaches the ­bottom.

Once you spot a school of prawns on your sounder you can then use this information to work out where to cast so your net ends up over them.

Your boat will usually drift faster than the net so it is best to throw down current of the boat. After you’ve cast your net, make sure it is on the bottom, but don’t lift it straight up because prawns will escape under the lead line.

The best technique is to either let the boat drift for a metre or so, which will drag the net sideways and close the lead line, then lift it or if there is little current, lift the net up so it is fully extended but pause before lifting the lead line off the bottom, this allows the prawns to flick up into the top pocket and not escape under the lead line.

When you do get the net up, watch out for stonefish and other spiky critters. They often look like a clump of mud so be extra careful.

Prawns generally spread out in the shallows on the high tide then move back into deeper holes as the tide drops, therefore deep holes on the run-out tide is usually the best time and place to target them.