Just A Girl Out Prawn Fishing

Fishing on a commercial prawn boat and a few of my favorite moments at sea with my boat cat Dudley.

Spring, and mid May in particular, is spot prawn season. I know it well because I spent many spring weeks out commercially prawn fishing. Up the inlets where we fished, spring could be icy cold despite the sunshine but that icy cold produces tasty seafood.

The first few weeks are usually very busy because the prawns have been growing and multiplying undisturbed all year. As the season progresses, the busyness wanes just enough to have the time to set some sport crab traps in the evening or jig for salmon, halibut or cod off the back deck.

I was rarely to never successful catching salmon but kept at it, inspired by Carlos, a deckhand on a nearby boat. Carlos caught a salmon almost every night! And he didn’t even like to eat it!!! So sometimes we were the lucky recipients of a salmon. A silver Spinnow was the lucky lure, or so he said. He even gave me one and although it never caught me a salmon, it did net me a halibut.

I’d sit on the back of the boat with my rationed mug of wine, Carlos with his rum and Coke. My boat cat, a fluffy and beautiful Himalayan named Dudley, beside me. Here he is climbing the rigging above where we set the traps from and where I would sit after work to sport fish.

Despite the monotony of usually only eating one type of seafood, I did not tire of prawns. It is fun to try different recipes with such a fresh and luxury food item.

The first few prawns of the season were eaten raw, next a simple steam with a little garlic butter on the side. Then we’d get fancy as we ate all the prawns we could. You can read more about commercial prawn fishing and a great prawn recipe on my website.

Another great prawn recipe is this Thai prawn salad. Inspired by my parents favorite recipe, it’s loaded with yummy ingredients like creamy avocado, sweet and juicy mango then topped with crunchy peanuts.

Here are the ingredients. Hop on over to my site for the full Thai prawn recipe and more prawn recipes

Thanks for reading along, I hope you get a chance to enjoy some fresh spot prawns over the next 4-6 weeks while the season lasts.

Cheers!

Sabrina