Blender for crushing prawn pellets
- Thread starter kaelc
- Start date
Rain City
Crew Member
Why on earth would you need to do this?
BearCove
Crew Member
I went to the thrift shop and picked up a used one for about $15, if/when it blows up I’ll grab another.
Works fantastic, I add the herring oil to the pellets when blending them, blend until it’s the consistency I like. Then I put it directly into my bait cups and put them in the freezer. I put bait cups in a large ziplock bag so it doesn’t get my freezer messy
Take them out when needed
Find that it really brings my numbers up
Good luck
Works fantastic, I add the herring oil to the pellets when blending them, blend until it’s the consistency I like. Then I put it directly into my bait cups and put them in the freezer. I put bait cups in a large ziplock bag so it doesn’t get my freezer messy
Take them out when needed
Find that it really brings my numbers up
Good luck
seachicken
Well-Known Member
Do you add any water? And what bait cups, just the regular plastic slotted ones from Scotty? I think I've heard of guys putting them in ice cube trays?
kaelc
Crew Member
Thanks really appreciate it.
Commercial prawn pellets release over 12 hours I believe, So mashing them up for quick sets should in theory attract more prawns. Better fishermen than I have told me, I’ve tried mashing them up by hand on the boat and it isn’t a productive proposition.
Rain City
Crew Member
They take 12 hours from the time you start soaking them in something. That doesn't mean they need to be 300 feet down to start the process.
RiverBoy
Well-Known Member
i leave mine in a large bucket that has a screw on lid. i add the oil and rotate the bucket from time to time. i like my pellets so when you grab one individually you can squeeze it and oil comes out. then into the bait cup it goes and it gets topped off with a can of carlisle with a bunch of holes poked in it. the entire can and all goes into the bait cup. i don’t remove from can
Done it for years - pellets, herring, salmon guts - freeze it in bait jars or small size coffee cups.
BearCove
Crew Member
No, I don’t add water, just the herring oil. Yes, the plastic bait cups that you put in the trap. Just keeps everything cleaner is all.
Also find it fishes way better then just the pellets, the smaller pieces come out of the cups and chime much better. Many more prawns in my traps than before
seachicken
Well-Known Member
Ok thanks for educating me, I have holes drilled in mine to open them up a bit, not sure the smashed up pellets will stay as well. Maybe I'll get a couple new ones and try them though.
I use the same pellets multiple times over.....when they come up I empty bait cups into an old pellet bucket with its original tight fitting lid. Then next trip out I sometimes use new pellets, some times use used pellets and some times use a mix. Some pellets have been down three or four times. From my experience over many years it seems to me that there is a level of randomness to which trap is going to do best that has no correlation to which bait I used. Two identical traps 50 yards apart on what my sounder says is same depth and type of bottom, often one trap can have like 75 and the other like 20 in a few hours.
So are people who use home made real bait having dramatically different experiences .....maybe I should switch it up....although i usually have to dump excess prawns back into the sea anyway.....if I could get a limit quicker I would.
So are people who use home made real bait having dramatically different experiences .....maybe I should switch it up....although i usually have to dump excess prawns back into the sea anyway.....if I could get a limit quicker I would.
carpeweekend
Crew Member
So, for the first time, I did a lot of Prawning in April in the Saanich inlet. Myself and a buddy dropped our two sets each on April 1st and proceeded to prawn for about 3 weeks, pulling them daily, so we had a good sample size to determine what worked and what didn't with bait.
The biggest revelation was that prawn bait didn't work any better than Costco Lamb and Rice dog food. Yup, my buddy had run out of prawn bait one day and just pilfered some of his dog's food instead. Turns out, it worked just as well as prawn bait. Several times, I used prawn bait on my traps while his were loaded with dog food and all of the traps were in the same area. His produced just as well as mine. And given that dog food is about 20% of the cost of prawn bait, a lot more cost effective. I also added liquid prawn scent on occasion and saw no discernible difference. Sounds crazy that prawns like lamb and rice dog food but explain to me why crabs like chicken?
There were a couple of occasions when we forgot new bait so just sent the traps back down with the old food. When pulled the following day, our traps were just as full as other days.
Lastly, when we started out, my traps were the round commercial style net type traps and his were the square, coated metal Bauer style traps. This was the biggest difference. His traps were loaded and mine were almost empty despite being in the same area. Not sure why, but obviously the netting seemed to dissuade the prawns from either entering or staying in the traps? After two days of his traps being loaded and mine with only a handful of prawns, I bought some of the Bauer style traps and had instant success.
The biggest revelation was that prawn bait didn't work any better than Costco Lamb and Rice dog food. Yup, my buddy had run out of prawn bait one day and just pilfered some of his dog's food instead. Turns out, it worked just as well as prawn bait. Several times, I used prawn bait on my traps while his were loaded with dog food and all of the traps were in the same area. His produced just as well as mine. And given that dog food is about 20% of the cost of prawn bait, a lot more cost effective. I also added liquid prawn scent on occasion and saw no discernible difference. Sounds crazy that prawns like lamb and rice dog food but explain to me why crabs like chicken?
There were a couple of occasions when we forgot new bait so just sent the traps back down with the old food. When pulled the following day, our traps were just as full as other days.
Lastly, when we started out, my traps were the round commercial style net type traps and his were the square, coated metal Bauer style traps. This was the biggest difference. His traps were loaded and mine were almost empty despite being in the same area. Not sure why, but obviously the netting seemed to dissuade the prawns from either entering or staying in the traps? After two days of his traps being loaded and mine with only a handful of prawns, I bought some of the Bauer style traps and had instant success.
Carpeweekend , Just curious was the bauer style trap fuller due to retaining all sizes during retrieval. I have not used that style of trap yet but I notice they have smaller mesh size. I often let my commercial style net mesh traps sit at the surface for 15 seconds while I ready a tub of water to dump it into as i find it allows many of the smalls and shrimp escape through the mesh.
carpeweekend
Crew Member
Nope, pretty much all larger spot prawns. Very few smalls. My mesh traps were being outfished by about 10:1.
Ive never felt a need to grind pellets or bait. Prawns seem pretty simple to catch. I do find adding some cat food or a bit of salmon scraps to the bait bin helps. Also do not over fill the bait containers. I used to do that and found the pellets did not have room to swell and break up. I was wasting a lot of bait and bait was not working as well. If I am going for a short soak like the 3 hour soak I did last week I put the bait containers in a bucket of water for half hour or so then drained the water. This gets the pellets working before I drop the traps. Got about 350 prawns that day. The box traps do seem to out fish the mesh traps in my opinion. I am box only now. Stack em and bungy together for transport.
jackfish
Active Member
Great post! I've been wondering for a while if dog food would serve the same purpose as the absurdly expensive prawn bait pellets. Now we know!
