January and February are the most difficult months for anglers. Snowstorms give way to severe frosts, when you don’t even want to leave the house. What can we say about fishing? The snow was waist-deep, making it difficult to get to the fishing spots. Searching for fish in such conditions is very difficult; it requires a lot of physical strength. By this time the ice has frozen over more than a meter—you can’t drill many holes. Everything suggests that it would be better to sit at home and drink hot tea...
But no! A real fisherman can handle these difficulties; nothing can become an obstacle to his favorite hobby. The desire to dip the jig into the hole and feel the barely noticeable movement of the nod makes you get up from the couch and go off on a fishing adventure!
Behavior of fish in the wilderness
The further into winter, the less active and capricious the fish become. First of all, this occurs due to a decrease in the oxygen concentration in the water. The thick ice shell does not allow the reservoir to be sufficiently saturated with oxygen. The fish tries to save as much energy as possible when moving. The energy conservation mode is turned on, and the transition to internal reserves accumulated since the fall is activated. She stops actively moving and feeding.
The less oxygen in the water, the less active the fish. The first to be affected by the wilderness are small, stagnant ponds and lakes with muddy bottoms and abundant vegetation. Oxygen levels drop most quickly there. In the most unfavorable years, starvation occurs - the fish suffocate and die.
In the middle of winter, it is better not to plan fishing on such reservoirs. Look for places where there is a fresh influx of oxygen - springs, springs gushing from the bottom, or small streams flowing into a body of water. Places where there is a moderate current and constant circulation of water masses are better saturated with oxygen. In rivers, fish are more active and tend to move and feed more. Keep this in mind when planning your fishing trip in January.
Habitats.
Where to look for pike on the river in winter?
Depending on the winter fishing season, pike can stand and hunt in different places and at different depths. According to the first ice, it will be at shallow and medium depths, usually in the coastal zone, not far from reeds or snags. In the middle of winter, during the so-called low winter period, pike will stand along the edges of the riverbed or along the edges of wintering pits. Also, at any winter time, pike will be attracted to places with a heavily indented bottom, with frequent changes in depth, or places where the bottom is strewn with snags.
When looking for pike in winter, you should avoid places with a very muddy bottom. There will be especially few pike in such places during the deep winter period.
Where to look for perch on the river in winter?
You don’t have to look for perch at all; it lives in all places where you drill a hole. But such a perch usually does not suit fishermen. Every fisherman wants to catch bigger and bigger bass.
But you need to look for large-sized perch in holes and changes in depth; usually it lives at the very bottom and moves alone.
Where to look for pike perch on the river in winter?
In winter, it is customary to look for pike perch at depth, along channel edges, in holes, under dumps. But also, especially in spring, pike perch can move to places with a flat bottom, to medium depths.
Pike perch are especially attracted to holes at the bottom that are filled with snags.
Usually you can’t catch a lot of pike perch from one hole; you need to constantly look for the predator, so to speak, follow the flock.
Where to look for roach in winter?
In winter, depending on the winter fishing season, roach can be found both at shallow and medium depths, and at large ones.
On the first ice, roaches should be looked for in places near the reeds, in places that were overgrown with algae in the summer. But with the strengthening of frosts, the roach begins to gradually move to greater depths; at this time it can be in pits, on dumps, on riverbed tables.
And already during the period of the last ice, the roach again begins to move to shallower depths, to places where melt water falls under the ice, these are bays, places where streams flow. Also at this time it can be found at the snag.
Where to look for bream in winter?
Bream is a deep fish that should be looked for in holes, at sharp changes in depth, along the edges of these changes.
In winter, bream can often be found together with pike perch; it happens that they even move along a pond together.
In general, try to catch bream in pits in winter. Bream lives at the very bottom; slightly above the bottom there are smaller individuals, which we all call bream.
Where to look for fish in the middle of winter?
At this time, underwater inhabitants prefer places with a hard bottom - clay-sand, pebbles, where there are a small number of aquatic plants and a barely noticeable current. At this time, the fish tries to avoid places heavily overgrown with vegetation, where the process of rotting of last year’s algae occurs, which draws out the last oxygen from the water and oxidizes the aquatic environment. These are usually places with standing water and muddy bottoms. Although such areas may be rich in food, you should not look for fish in January and February and hope for an active bite here.
On large reservoirs, the signs of deep winter are least visible. The amount of oxygen in a huge volume of water is enough for a long period. The fish continues to feed all winter, but becomes more capricious and bites cautiously. In the reservoir, unlike rivers, there are no winter parking areas as such - wintering pits. The fish are more evenly dispersed, but still prefer to go to feeding areas that are adjacent to the greatest depths. The temperature of the water at depth is several degrees higher, and it is more comfortable for her to relax and slowly digest her food.
Sand spits with a clear difference in depth and small bushes and snags at the bottom, outlets into bays overgrown with algae, navels adjacent to deep holes are promising places to search.
In rivers, peaceful fish accumulate in huge schools in wintering pits - unique deep places with hard soil and weak currents that form behind water obstacles - mounds, rocks and others. Often in such places, or nearby, there are abundant colonies of shells on the bottom - food for bream, ide and carp. There are few such places in the river. Not every deep hole will be a wintering hole. Fish need several favorable factors for winter “parking”.
Schools of large fish usually accumulate in wintering pits. There may not be room for small items. Small fish are less demanding on wintering conditions. Therefore, roach, dace, perch, etc. are dispersed throughout the river. It can be found in local holes near coastal bushes, in bays where the current slows down and a “return” is formed. In holes next to grass and snags, protected from the current. Right there, next door, a predator is always watching over them.
Large bream and ide can be successfully caught using a combine harvester or winter passes in such places; read the article about this: “Fishing with a combine harvester. Large bream and ide from the ice"
Looking for fish
So, where to look for prey in winter? When talking with my friends, I often hear complaints that there is no bite, I spent the whole day and caught only two ruffs. I start asking where I caught it. It turns out almost all the time in one place, familiar from ancient times. Then there are sad arguments that that’s it, the fish are gone, even in the treasured place under the bridge, they used to catch them with sleds, but this year there is nothing at all. I cautiously ask about the bottom topography, but it turns out that they somehow don’t think about it. I came to one place, and if it bites today, it is concluded that it will bite here tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and for several years in a row.
Ice has set
But the peculiarity of fishing on the river in winter is that you have to look for fish. Fish accumulate in certain places and if they don’t bite in your hole within 15 minutes, then you need to move on to the next hole. Winter fishing on the river should be active.
Watch the video about winter fishing on the last ice on the Volga River:
Habitats in winter
In winter, fish in rivers stand in deep holes with a slow current and from time to time swim to smaller areas to feed. Then he comes back again. Feeding places are the edges and slopes of holes, rocky hills. It is best to look for any anomalies in the river bottom. If you find such a place, then you need to remember it well. If you miss by just a few meters, there will be no catch.
So, a river is a place where, due to changes in the bottom topography, the flow changes. There is fast and quiet water. The river does not rise immediately. The fragile ice in the middle of the river breaks up at the beginning of winter, and small ice chips go with the flow. But the coastline has already stood up. Gradually, the ice freezes, and an edge in the form of hummocks forms on the border of this line and the newly formed ice. It is small in various places from one to two meters. This is the border of quieter water and current. This is a landmark where you can look for fish on the river in winter.
Fishing on the river
Tackle in the wilderness
When the fish is cautious and inactive, it can be tempted to bite only with the most delicate and thin tackle. At this time, when fishing with jigs, you should use the thinnest fishing lines from 0.06 to 0.1; athletes sometimes use even thinner ones. Use tiny tungsten jigs with bloodworms.
Reelless baits sometimes give the best results if the angler managed to pick up the key - a game that the passive fish will play that day. If the reservoir is not well known, you will have to drill a lot in search of active fish. This is problematic due to the thick ice. Therefore, it is better to immediately study the reservoir, talk with experienced fishermen for the presence of underwater springs and promising places where fish are standing at this time.
You shouldn’t rely only on a reelless jig or a jig with an attachment. During the dry winter period, the fisherman must be flexible and especially inventive. If you cannot get a bite from a bloodworm, you should not resist, but try to provoke the fish with a game. This is the only way, by trying different options, you can hope for success during this difficult winter period.
It is better to leave fishing with balance beams and spoons until the last ice, when the melt waters bring oxygen to the reservoir and the fish become more active. You can only hope for luck in such fishing on the most favorable days.
The only predator that is very active at this time is burbot. In the second half of January, after spawning, he will have a post-spawning feast. Read about methods of catching burbot in the article - “Fishing for burbot. The best fishing time has come." Don't miss the giveaway!
No tail, no scales during this difficult fishing period!
How to find a fish site in winter?
Looking for fish sites in winter In winter, it is always difficult for an angler on a new, unfamiliar body of water to find a cool place. Ice reliably hides any traces of fish activity and feeding, which are easy to notice in open water. Often you have to walk along a reservoir for more than one kilometer and drill more than a dozen holes. On short winter days there is little time left for fishing directly, so the search for a place must be quick and competent. In summer, fish usually make periodic migrations during the day from deep to shallow water and back. It feeds in shallow water and rests in pits. It doesn’t matter whether the fish is predatory or peaceful. Crucians, roaches and other cyprinids swim towards the thickets of reeds and other aquatic plants, and predators rush after them.
In winter the same thing happens, but on a global scale. Immediately after freeze-up, the fish stay in shallow water. There she feeds on plant remains. Predators, accordingly, swim nearby. At this time, you need to look for fish closer to the shore: where the most withered vegetation protrudes from the ice or snags protrude.
By mid-winter, the activity of rotting and decomposition of plant debris increases. These processes take oxygen from the water, and the fish have to move to deeper places. There is less food and also some oxygen. Therefore, the fish becomes lethargic, feeds little, and, as a result, the bite deteriorates significantly during this period. If you plan to go fishing with a large group, then the time spent searching for fish can be significantly reduced. It is necessary to competently coordinate the actions of all fishermen in order to cover as large an area of the reservoir as possible at the very beginning. Drill holes everywhere and work together to find fish. It is also easier for a large group to select catchable baits.
Alone, even on a reservoir familiar from summer fishing, it will always be difficult to find fish. To spend less time and effort looking for a cool place in winter, it is better to remember promising places in the reservoir in the summer. Information can be schematically entered into a notebook, indicating clearly visible landmarks: large boulders, trees and features of the coastline topography. Being on the ice of a reservoir, the first thing you can do is determine the depths, of course, based on coastal features. A high, steep bank indicates serious depths starting right from the shore. In addition, on rivers near such a bank, the current is most often the fastest - this is not a very successful option, because the object of our hunt has no reason to waste energy holding on to the current. A rock (or stone) protruding into a body of water from the general mass is a very good landmark by which you can determine where the current slows down, twists, or changes direction - one of the favorite places for fish to stay. No less interesting are bays on steep banks, often with flowing streams or rivers. Changes in depth in such bays and at the exit from them also attract various fish. A gently sloping low bank, on the contrary, indicates shallow depths in the coastal zone, and the depth grows very slowly towards the center of the reservoir. Often in such areas, small depressions or mounds with a depth difference of 10-20 cm can serve as a refuge for fish, but such places can only be found through practical means. We are not happy with this option, so let’s better see what, besides the “beach,” attracts our attention on the shore. Trees, bushes, stumps sticking out from under the ice are a good sign of snags. A dense wall of reeds indicates more significant depressions relative to the neighboring “bare” areas of the coast. In such a place you can look for the boundary of the depth difference.
In general, everything that differs from the general picture on the shore is a sign of some changes in the topography of the bottom of the reservoir. Depressions, or vice versa - spits resting on the water, changes in vegetation (bushes and trees), coastal islands, flowing rivers, ice raised by mounds - all these places can attract fish. One famous person said in this regard that fish will choose places according to the principle of “dissimilarity”: in deep reservoirs there are shallow areas, in shallow ones there are deep areas, on wide rivers there are narrow places and vice versa. Of course, all these are vague definitions, but over time you will learn to avoid monotonous, dull areas and recognize the places where the sand spits end in a sharp drop, where the flowing river washes up a “bank” or where the current boundary is located under a protruding cape. Artificial obstacles are also potentially successful. Walkways, destroyed bridges, piles, dams, mills - all this cannot but attract fish.
For example, in the old days, many fishermen made various barriers with their own hands where fish could hide, and they successfully used this. Even submerged spruce brooms in a beach area work great in this regard.
Contrary to the well-known saying, fish do not look for “where deeper,” but, like for humans, “where is better.” This is something worth thinking about. The instinct of self-preservation and the hunting instinct in this case work in the same direction. It will always be better where there is some kind of barrier behind which you can hide or, on the contrary, set up an ambush for hunting. Agree, there is no point in standing in the wind (on the current) in an open field (on a flat area) - it is unpleasant, dangerous and does not promise any gain. This means we need to look where our prey can hide from the “wind” and prying eyes. Well, we have more or less figured out the shores, but what about on large bodies of water, because our potential catch is not only near the shore, but it may turn out to be that and only not near the shore. How to find fish in the middle of a multi-kilometer water area covered with a meter-long layer of ice? How to discern the depth under such protection?
In this case, ice itself can help us. We say “may” because the weather does not always allow us to use this “map”. Everyone knows perfectly well that during the winter the ice breaks from time to time, and if there is not much snow, or it is compacted enough, then the ice surface becomes literally riddled with cracks.
So, these same cracks are nothing more than pointers to various “anomalies” at the bottom under water. We will not go into details from the field of physics, I will only say that in such places the ice is a little thinner than the main mass, and therefore it breaks not just anywhere, but where we need it - namely, at places where there are differences in depth, there , where there are stones, stumps, “banks”, or even logs at the bottom. Naturally, the more bizarre the crack, the more “interesting” the situation at the bottom is. Two or three cracks converging at one point is also “cool”. When drilling holes in such places, keep in mind that the crack may be located somewhat to the side of the desired “anomaly,” since the flow changing from this obstacle, which contributes to the thinning of the ice at a given point, may shift slightly when moving from the obstacle to the lower edge of the ice. Moreover, the surface of the ice itself, although not much, is slowly moving. Well, basically, that’s all I wanted to say about this. Now, standing on the ice of an unfamiliar body of water with the question “ where is the fish?”
“, It will be easier for you to answer it and you will be able to “declassify” secluded places that other “competitors” could not see with much greater confidence.
Choosing the “right” fishing spot
To return home with a good catch, you need to settle in the “right” place, the one that pleases the object of your hunt. Please note that each type of fish has its own. And, if the pike “likes” places overgrown with aquatic vegetation (they are ideal for setting up ambushes for fry), then the pike perch will prefer natural shelters such as stones and heavy snags. The lifestyle of fish and their habits must also be taken into account.
The undoubted convenience of winter fishing is that the fisherman has access to almost any point in the reservoir. However, under the thickness of the ice the life of representatives of the local underwater world is completely invisible, and this is a significant disadvantage. Professional ice fishermen study the reservoir in advance, even before freeze-up, to find out:
- Features of water flow;
- Bottom relief;
- The thickness of the water layer in different places;
- Jet deflection vector;
- Natural shelters, etc.
Naturally, in reservoirs there are places where aquatic vegetation grows: reeds, reeds, horsetail thickets. In most cases, fish “do not respect” reeds, as they make a lot of noise. Reeds are another matter! Perch, pike, roach, and other predators like to set up ambushes in the reeds.
Read: Submarine balancers: from the first to the last ice
But, most of all, fish are attracted to horsetail. In the places where it grows, the water is special, mixed with alkali. In winter, there is more air, which, penetrating through the hollow stems of the plant, spreads in the deep layers of the reservoir. That is why, with the onset of winter, schools of perch accumulate in horsetail thickets. And also, sick fish swim to such places so that after some time they leave this kind of “hospital” completely healthy. So know that if you find thickets of horsetail on a pond, good fishing will be guaranteed.
But there is one more point that you need to pay special attention to: in places where vegetation grows, the ice is much thinner, so you need to approach them and move around with caution.
Try to find the so-called “spots” - shallows, in the middle of places with impressive depth. There you can “pull out” bream, perches, large roaches - you wonder how this fish ended up there! Experienced fishermen recommend fishing either on the approaches to the shallows or directly on it.
Do you know about fish trails? Do you think this is a myth? But they actually exist. But it’s quite difficult to identify them: sometimes they pass along a bottom ditch, sometimes along an embankment or rampart that stretches in a certain direction. It happens that fish “cruise” in the thickness of underwater vegetation, and if there is no grass, all the same, the fish, obeying some kind of inner instinct, move in only one direction known to them.
Read: Catching pike perch on a winter night is not a problem!
If, after lifting the gear, you find some vegetation on the hook, inspect it. If it is a water plague (elodea), look for another place: you will not find anyone there except small holes and pipe cleaners.
Good catches can be achieved if you find a place at the junction of sandy and pebble bottoms. There, among the pebbles, live various insects that attract various fish. There will be good fishing on the rifts (in the same places as in the summer). Trophy specimens are found below rapids, where the reservoir becomes deeper, and at the junctions of direct and reverse currents it is convenient to catch with a small jig.
