Prawn trap conundrum. Feedback much appreciated.

[RiverBoy]

So I have a Double Eagle 185 and it’s truly a great boat. however, with the twin sleeper configuration it has a minuscule dance floor, making prawn fishing very difficult. I usually run into desolation with eight traps and have difficulty trying to build and bait and set them in such a small confined area. I usually end up laying down my port sleeper seat as I need the room; which means I have to close the cuddy door, which means I have the floats stuck in the small aisle between sleepers, tripping over bales of rope etc. rolling thru the gear is obviously fine, but breaking it all down is actually way worse. Anyways, you get the point.

I am seriously thinking about going to square Bauer style traps. My thought process here is; because they are modular, they will stack like Lego. They will act like a table for the next one as well.after doing some measurements, I can easily stack them on themselves four high and hardly be over the height of the gunnel. and still have more room than what I’m currently dealing with.
Looking for any feed back pro or con.

Thanks!

 

[AndrewH]

Well with my experience after going from regular commie traps to the 24" Bauers is you need half as many Bauers to get the same prawn numbers..

 

[JWS]

I’ve had both square and round traps and my vote goes to round stackers. One stack of traps and rope tubs on top of that. With that said, I absolutely hate having traps in the boat and very much look forward to having a few tubs in the freezer so I can get the traps out of the boat

 

[Pearl dog]

ya. Any brand of traps in the little 17-18 footers is tight. I doubt you’d gain much over your current setup. I prefer the round stackers. I think they fish better and are easier to deal with. But the difference isn’t worth arguing about.

 

[chille51]

I use the Bauer 18's in a 17' Arima. I do pretty much what you describe in that I use the tops of them as a table top when I am baiting. For rope I use collapsible laundry baskets with some holes drilled in the bottom. Four traps and two baskets leave plenty of room to get in and out of the boat and to work. Once the traps are down, I collapse the laundry baskets and chuck them in the cuddy and I have an unencumbered dance floor again. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CKXZBWSJ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title