Hey SZ, I got some better ideas for you. First, get quality cooked whole prawns; the best being the Marcy brand. Some seafood stores or dept.'s will sell you a whole unopened box of frozen Marcy's, and you only have to eat some of the ones with missing heads or fantails. The majority of them are good to go. ...

The best cure for prawns is soaking them for a couple hours or so in the drained off saved redish egg juice from the chem-curing process; with such as Pro-Glo cure, Pro-Cure, or Quick cure. You get the best pinkish color, egg juice and scent, and sodium sulfite from the egg cure juice to both preserve them a bit longer and add the sodium scent Kings like. This is also a good thing to soak sardine filets in before wrapping Kwikfish - deadly!!! ...

If you don't have enough egg juice, I suggest making a brine using distilled water (no chlorine concern as with tap water - although a small factor, small factors add up!). To a gallon of distilled water add about one cup of the red Pro-Glo coloring powder (not the cure), one cup sodium sulfite, and one cup of either non-iodized salt or quality fine powdered borax. Stir real well and leave the prawns soak in that for a couple hours or so. Try adding some bait oils for some of them for a variant. A medium pink color will work better on the Columbia and Wind/Drano, and the hot pink to red color for the Willamette, especially after it colors a bit with rains. Also, check out my Columnbia tips thread on ways to rig prawns. I will find it and bring it back up toward the top of the BB.