Prawning 101 - Another Kind of Play

If we ever dare scold our child for being playful, we would first have to look at ourselves. Both dh and I are like playful kittens, so this time we went to play with prawns. It was dh's recommendation. Is there a difference between fishing and prawning? Yes I think there is. Fishing is an even more trying activity than prawning. At least in an hour, you can see some prawns being caught but fishing would require much more patience. I have never heard from my older sibling that he could do fishing in an hour, it's usually a day but for prawning, we could do it in an hour. Nevertheless it still trains one's patience.

Today's our first try at it as a family. Daddy caught one, Mummy caught one and Baby caught none but she had fun at the photography and tugging at the rod.

Why 101? Well, I never knew that even prawning can have so much knowledge in order to fare well in it. It's really great that we often meet people who are willing to share tips and tricks on the spot with us despite we hardly know one another. We met a couple prawning-dating? and from the way they were at it, I thought they were in it for years. To my amazement, they also started not too long ago...but their result was obviously much more handsome than ours. In the end, I had to borrow their basket for photography.

We learnt the following tips from them:

You must hook the bait properly, in a way that the prawn cannot just bite and run.
The vendor gave chicken heart as the bait but you must buy your own cockles and used it as the bait instead. The cockles should be as smelly as possible in order to attract the prawns. They seem to catch bigger prawns too with cockles or in Hokkien, "see hum". They also shared that the best bait would be earthworms but they did not know where to find them.
Once you feel the tug on the rod, must be quick to move the prawn up as it can possibly detach and fall back into the water.
Must have guts to pull the prawn out and put into the netted basket and immerse the basket back into the water while storing it. I screamed when I caught one and the 'prawning pro"s helped me to dislodge the prawn into the netted basket.
In order to catch more prawns, check out the schedule where they would be "topping-up" the prawns into the ponds. We missed the timing badly, hence our reward was not great and when they topped up the prawns in the pond, it was time for us to leave.

Now, do you think the prawns are thrown back into the prawn pond after the game is over? No, they would be sent to the pit for BBQ. Fortunately or unfortunately for us, we only had 2 prawns, so we gave them away to the kind couple who had coached us throughout the prawning game, instead of seeing the prawns go to the BBQ pit ourselves.

So if you are playful like us and run out of things to play, try prawning, it's quite an experience especially when you are at the "tug-of-war" with the prawn....

ksi's blog
Login or register to post comments

Tags:

Activity |
Athletic

Submitted by ksi on Thu, 09/09/2010 - 11:45pm

thanks for sharing :)

WCW | Thu, 09/06/2011 - 11:29am

wow, another nice place for

wow, another nice place for DS to go

thanks :)

WCW | Thu, 02/06/2011 - 2:09pm

Prawning Discount Voucher

http://www.deal.com.sg/todaydeal_side is selling a $9 voucher for one hour of prawning, instead of the usual $15. Hurry! Only 8 hours left before the deal expires!

If you plan to sign up to get this deal, please use the following link: http://www.deal.com.sg/referral/77778582

Highlights

Redeem 1 hour of prawning at Bishan & Jurong Prawning by paying only $9. (USP $15)
Conveniently located at 603 Sin Ming Avenue (Bishan) & 241 Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim (Jurong)
Currently the largest prawn fishing facility available in Singapore
Buy as many vouchers as you want!

Conditions

Voucher non-refundable and non-exchangeable
Voucher valid for 3 months from date of purchase
Buy as many vouchers as you want!
Limited to 1 hour of prawning per voucher
Present physical voucher for redemption

BigDevil | Mon, 11/10/2010 - 4:16pm

wow. thanks for the tips

amylqf | Sun, 19/09/2010 - 12:22am

duriz, nature park?

Hi Duriz,

where is this nature park you are staying in with these domestic and non-domestic animals? PM me leh...

tree nymph | Sat, 18/09/2010 - 2:15am

More prawning?

Talking about prawning... I have had the best prawning experience in Perth. We were in this city which is about 2 hours by car. There are many canals there and these canals are linked to the sea. Instead of using hooks and baits, we use a long net and no bait at all. But a very powerful torch light is needed. and yes, a pail or two to hold the prawns.

Then you have to check out the tide timings. We like high tide as it usually brings in the prawns. We usually go to the same spot under a bridge - our lucky spot! Okay, the torch light is not just for having some lights at the dark/dim surrounding, but it's main purpose is to use it to shine into the dark water. The prawn's eyes can reflect light when shone onto them. So when you shine the light into the water and see shiny yellow/orange light reflecting, you have to quickly SCOOP! You will be able to scoop up a prawn if you are fast enough. if you are a little too slow, you will not be able to catch the prawn. Prawns are naturally good jumpers. they can do triple jump or more effortlessly. I suggest you don't try to catch the jumping prawns... will probably end up in the cold sea water...

As you need to see the prawn's eye to catch it, we can only catch prawns at night. We usually start after dinner, around 9pm. And we didn't stop for a long while, since its such good fun! Its always a challenge to catch the next prawn or catch two prawns in one scoop or that its a very big one. We usually stop only after 3am. No, we didnt bother to start a fire and have BBQ prawns, or have sashimi... We just bring the whole lot back and throw the whole lot into the freezer ...

tree nymph | Sat, 18/09/2010 - 2:13am

tree nymph, your Perth

tree nymph, your Perth prawning sounds very interesting indeed!!

And if you look at the prawn pictures in my blog, it is true that the eyes are responding to the flashlight. Initially I thought it was just the red-eye effect of photography...

ksi | Sun, 19/09/2010 - 10:58am

Prawning

DH like fishing. Our family went with him twice to kelong in Malaysia. That was nice experience. Had suggested to him on prawning in Singapore, he is not keen leh, so sad.

jiyou2003 | Wed, 15/09/2010 - 9:28pm

Btw duriz...where do you

Btw duriz...where do you find the squirrels for your dd to play? in the parks?

cheers

ksi | Mon, 13/09/2010 - 9:02pm

Hi ksi, The estate we live

Hi ksi,

The estate we live in has many animals, wild and domesticated.
Squirrels, moles (please see my mole joke), bats, snakes (yikes). Even free-range roosters and chickens. We don't know who owns or rears those chooks. Our neighbors also have many pets like cats, dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits and rats. DD is very lucky and very into animals

duriz | Tue, 14/09/2010 - 11:23am

Duriz, yr dd so brave w

Duriz, yr dd so brave w animals...I cannot go near them...hahaha. But it is good training you are giving her and I am sure she will grow up adventurous.

Mintcc, the place that duriz state is the same place we went to!!! But there are a few such ponds around, I heard cck also have.

ksi | Mon, 13/09/2010 - 6:24pm

Hi mintcc, There is one at

Hi mintcc,

There is one at Bishan. Within Nature Park Golf Driving Range, 601 Sin Min Avenue, Singapore 575734. It's called Hai Bin U Enterprise (Prawn Fishing).

duriz | Mon, 13/09/2010 - 2:46pm

p/s Currently, she is into dogs, cats and squirrels.

duriz | Mon, 13/09/2010 - 9:53am