Daytime Prawning

[noelm]

Plenty of flow, more than there has been for decades, there has been no Prawns for a few years now, maybe there's too much tide?

[Yowie]

17 hours ago, wazatherfisherman said:

Those shrimp are deadly for Blackfish fished under a regular float rig also. When I was a kid they used to sell "Prawn Net" and "Shrimp Net" - both green cotton with super small mesh for shrimps- bought them both at Windang

I holidayed around Windang as a kid, and fished the "lake" from near the entrance at times up to The Step where the main channel flowed into the lake itself. I fished a bit further into the lake at times, but the nor-easters and southerlies made it a bit choppy in an 8 foot boat, so it was rowing along the channel in the boat.

A few times on the big Christmas tides, the water was flowing that fast that I was going backwards, so I had to head to the shallow water to go forward.

 

[Yowie]

4 hours ago, noelm said:

Plenty of flow, more than there has been for decades, there has been no Prawns for a few years now, maybe there's too much tide?

I was speaking to the owner of the fish shop, the one at the northern end of the lake, during last Christmas, and he stated that the amount of prawns flowing out is not worth the fuel and expense to catch, so he does not bother trying.

He thinks a good dose of rain may help, not likely to happen for some time.

[noelm]

One pro reckons there is too much flushing of the lake, and the juveniles just get washed out before they grow, no idea if he's right, but Lake Illawarra was famous for Prawns for decades, for some reason, one year there was none and it stayed that way.

[Yowie]

2 hours ago, noelm said:

One pro reckons there is too much flushing of the lake, and the juveniles just get washed out before they grow, no idea if he's right, but Lake Illawarra was famous for Prawns for decades, for some reason, one year there was none and it stayed that way.

I prawned there in the 60's and early 70's when my grandparents owned a van, and it was no effort to pull out half a bucket of prawns a night - more if you stayed out for a while. Small ones for livies the next morning, and cook up the rest. A shame that it has deteriorated.

[wazatherfisherman]

46 minutes ago, Yowie said:

I prawned there in the 60's and early 70's when my grandparents owned a van, and it was no effort to pull out half a bucket of prawns a night - more if you stayed out for a while. Small ones for livies the next morning, and cook up the rest. A shame that it has deteriorated.

My childhood memories of prawning at Windang were more boat orientated. We used to kellick the boat each end across the current with the old 'Tilley' lamps held on a wedged oar out diagonally, used old style wood handled, gal framed cotton scoop nets balanced on the side of the boat and just 'dipped' to get prawns and Blue Swimmers as they floated down on the run out tide. Some nights it was a sea of red eyes. You could just wade out in front of our caravan and always get some for live bait, even if it wasn't running out there were always a few next to the weed beds

Thinking about those days/nights now always brings a smile to my face of times now long ago, when sea-life of all sorts was abundant

[Yowie]

1 hour ago, wazatherfisherman said:

We used to kellick the boat each end across the current with the old 'Tilley' lamps held on a wedged oar out diagonally, used old style wood handled, gal framed cotton scoop nets balanced on the side of the boat and just 'dipped' to get prawns and Blue Swimmers as they floated down on the run out tide.

We anchored the boat the same way. My grandfather made a wooden bracket that attached to the side of the boat, and the Tilley lamp locked into the bracket and was tied on for extra safety. You dipped with the prawn net, avoiding the blue swimmers as they made a mess if tangled in a prawn net.

For the people that think blue swimmers only cruise along the bottom, there were a lot some nights, swimming just under the surface, sometimes at a fair bit of pace.

One day I saw a school of sea mullet swimming upstream, jumping along a narrow track. I rowed out to below the bridge and the school stretched closer to the entrance, so I rowed upstream to the entrance of the lake past The Step. It was one continuous stream of mullet, about 3 foot wide and the same deep. I have never seen so many mullet, and if I say there was a million mullet in that one school, I would not be exaggerating by too much. One of those experiences of the sea that I cannot forget.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Yowie

[wazatherfisherman]

12 minutes ago, Yowie said:

We anchored the boat the same way. My grandfather made a wooden bracket that attached to the side of the boat, and the Tilley lamp locked into the bracket and was tied on for extra safety. You dipped with the prawn net, avoiding the blue swimmers as they made a mess if tangled in a prawn net.

For the people that think blue swimmers only cruise along the bottom, there were a lot some nights, swimming just under the surface, sometimes at a fair bit of pace.

Windang was famous for Blue Swimmers, I remember my Grandma, Aunties Bess, Ena and Cathy going straight out from the van without the men and coming back with a boat load of crabs that they caught on squirt worms and hand lines.. I was only about 5 or 6 and there was much sniggering as the crabs were unloaded, tipped onto the floor of the caravan and "trapping" all the kids at the opposite end to the door. We weren't game to put our feet off the bunks- too fearful of the blue "monsters" and we were trapped until the cooking started, which seemed to go on for ages.

[noelm]

Still plenty of crabs in the Lake, we got our bag limit in about 2 hours yesterday, funny thing with the Prawns, they used to be normal old  Eastern King Prawns (just smaller) but when the entrance was changed, only small school Prawns were caught, very pale in colour, similar to the ones you get in places like the Clarence river up north, and like you buy for bait, who knows what's gone on.

Edited December 31, 2019 by noelm
Typo

[Yowie]

I use to catch plenty of schoolies, with eastern kings mixed in. There was also the occasional greasyback as well, but these do not run to sea so had to be scooped off the sand.

Sounds like the kings are not breeding very well in the lake any more.