Lake Mac.

[twinfisher]

Well springs here and looking forward to doing a little prawning crabbing and fishing Havn,t had a spring/summer session up here yet and looking forward to it. I would be fishing out of the boat scooping on one side and bait fishing the other hopefully with a live prawn. Anyhow if anybody can point me in the right direction to where i can get into a channel with a bit of run it would be great. I havn,t tried Lake Munmorah as yet but they say it,s good prawning territory. Entrance to Swansea channel maybe. Just one other thing are the pro,s alloud to in the area.Cheers Norm.

[Jethro]

G'day Norm

I haven't done any prawning up on Lake Macquarie so take from this what you will.

I have been told when the prawns run anchor your self up in Swansea channel and look for the weed an scum lines that form in the run out. The theory is if the weed and other material congregate there so should the prawns.

As for Lake Mumorah we used to do alright at Elizabeth bay with drag nets. You would still get a feed with a scoop net but you just had to work a bit harder.

Another place worth a look is Canton Beach but you just have to watch out for teh Great Whites

Pros are not allowed to net in Lake Macquarie but they still give Lake Munmorah a flogging

[Lightweight]

Hi Twinfisher,

I have seen the channel, (between the airport and sand island) boat to boat prawning, you could almost walk from one side of the channel to the other without getting your toes wet. This mainly happens in the first two weeks of December (coinciding with the moon phases).

You may want to just try a hand prawn net, in and around the weed beds between Nesca Park and the western side of Swansea.

As for the Pro's i have no idea, but you would assume since the Pro Fishing buy-out they would be banned ?

LW

[troutboy]

Hi all

Just got back from 4 days at the Swansea gardens lakeside holiday park and was using live prawns as bait,didnt do too well on the fishing front but gathering the live prawns was just too easy. There is a small sand beach adjacent to the van park and all i had to do was walk along the edge just on dark and in about 1/2hr had a small bucket full just by using a torch and a small fine mesh scoop net. Not really enough to eat but more than plenty for a night or 2 fishing!

[Bucket]

Twinfisher,

Used to do ALOT of prawning from the boat when the parents owned a caravan up at Swansea. So the info is old but probably still valid.

Everyone used to to prawn at the end of the airport in the lake around the deep holes. This of course got very crowded very quick after dark.

We found that we got just as many prawns by setting up about 100m the ocean side of the bridge in the channel on the Blacksmith Beach Caravan Park side. If you have got a depth sounder set your self up downstream of any large holes. This should also help the fishing aspect.

We found the trick was having the lights not too bright because this tends to scare the prawns more than it helps spot them.

Stephen