Advantages
If you are going to the Volga River, you can choose to camp with tents yourself: either on the shore or at some distance from the water. Someone goes into the forest, someone stops in a clearing.
There is no need to take a lot of clothes with you. Enough sports stuff. But you should definitely take your swimwear with you. You can do whatever you want: admire the sunset, play the guitar, ride a boat.
If you have never cooked over a fire, then you are missing out on a lot. Suffice it to recall the old pioneer song about potatoes from a fire. If you collect mushrooms in the forest, catch fish, fry vegetables or bake them in ash, it will turn out very tasty.
Seasonal fishing
They fish on the Volga all year round, and there are practically no obvious declines in the behavior of the fish. However, there are also some peculiarities dictated by local climate conditions.
Summer fishing
The summer fishing season here is considered to be the period from the end of June to mid-September. Different types of fish are caught with different types of gear. To be more precise, quite decent bream are caught on the bottom, with float tackle you can catch plenty of roach, carp, carp, silver bream, sabrefish, and spinning rods often catch large pike and catfish. Catching catfish here is especially exciting, since it is unlikely that anywhere else you will have the opportunity to try your luck in catching a real giant, whose weight reaches 100 kilograms. There is an opportunity to try out such gear as kwok.
Autumn fishing
In autumn, fishing for trophy predators is very effective here. First of all, you need to look for it in deep-water snags. Pike perch is very active, many come here specifically for it, since the bite of this fish reaches its peak in late autumn. The weight of individual fish can reach 10-12 kilograms, which is, in fact, very rare for pike perch. And thanks to the vast expanse of water, trolling fishing becomes especially important in the hunt for large predators. Peaceful fish species are also successfully caught, especially for carp, which continues to bite almost the very first ice.
Winter fishing
Fishing on the Volga River
If we talk about winter fishing, then the ice fishing season begins here much later than in most other regions and for some time the river remains free in places, and in some places ice forms, which, however, is not yet strong enough. The best bite here is observed on the first and last ice; in the middle of winter the fish are not so active, but continue to be caught. Roach, bream and perch are caught well with jig tackle, and pike and pike perch are caught with jigs. However, you should not forget that the weather, especially in the Astrakhan region, can be unstable, so winter fishing here requires special attention and attention.
Spring fishing
Active spring fishing begins in March. A period is coming from which many are trying to make the most of it, going with a spinning rod to the bays in search of pike and asp; the active movement of pike perch begins, which is mainly caught with jig tackle. Roach and rudd are good for catching on bottoms. Areas where numerous eriks and lakes adjoin the river become objects of increased attention of fishermen, since this is where active pre- and post-spawning fishing takes place. Schools of roach also head here, without which many fishermen simply cannot imagine Volga fishing.
What should I take?
- The first point is, naturally, a tent. In this case, you need to take a two-layer, spacious tent. It is advisable that it accommodates at least 2 people. What happens next depends on how many people are traveling with you, and so on. If you do not understand tents, then consult the seller.
- Tent. The weather is a capricious lady: maybe it’s raining, maybe it’s sunny. You can dry things under this awning, relax under it, and protect the place where you cook. If you don’t have an awning or don’t want to spend money on one, take polyethylene with you.
- To secure the tent or dry your clothes after swimming, take ropes with you.
- Experienced tourists advise that when going on vacation with tents to the Volga, take with them some things for an overnight stay. This could be, for example, sleeping bags. Recently, air mattresses have become fashionable.
- Bug spray, sunscreen, something for your head, like a Panama hat.
- It can be cold in the evening, so bring something warm and a change of clothes.
- Don't forget your socks.
- Hygiene supplies.
- It is advisable to take a flashlight with you as it can be useful at night and in the evening.
- If you plan to cook over a fire, bring the appropriate supplies with you. This could be a bowler hat and whatever you hang it on. You will also need a ladle, a knife, salt, spices, and so on.
- It is recommended to take disposable or unbreakable plates with you.
- You can also grill fish instead of fish soup. If you are going to do this, then you should take a grill, grill and skewers with you.
- It is best to arrive in the morning before lunch, as it gets dark quite quickly and it will be difficult to pitch a tent in the dark.
- It is better not to take perishable foods with you, unless, of course, you intend to consume them immediately. If you do take something like this, it is better to also take special cooler bags with you.
- Never leave backpacks or devices where you store food open. Don't forget, this is nature. There are wild animals here. They will certainly come to the smell of food.
- If you take a child with you, you need to take everything necessary for him.
Article by Kirill Kozlov “Fishing in the Middle Volga.”
The trip to the Middle Volga was planned back in the summer months. Considering the prolonged “Indian summer” with excellent weather, as well as the release of a new line of spinning rods from the Mottomo brand with the promising name Spring, which literally means Spring, and not spring, as many might assume. An immediate start was given in early October.
The middle Volga is quite large; my partner and I were heading towards the North-West of the Nizhny Novgorod region.
Even at the entrance to the region, we noticed that the weather contrasted sharply with the central region, despite the forecasts we had looked at on various websites. Well, it is what it is. In fishing it’s simply not possible to predict everything in advance...
The main obstacle to “comfortable fishing” was the strong hurricane wind, which blew up huge waves on the main Volga and one could simply forget about fishing in these places on a PVC boat. In such conditions, you need a “hard body”... Of course, there is always a way out. In our case, it looked like one of the many bays of the river. As a rule, such bays are formed as a result of the confluence of a small river into the Volga. It is worth noting that even there you cannot hide from the strong wind, but the waves already allow you to safely move by boat in search of predator sites. The main working depths where bites were recorded in this large bay ranged between five and seven metres.
Of course, the perch bit both at three and at a meter,
but it was not part of the main purpose of our visit to these parts. Single symbols of fish pressed to the bottom on the echo sounder screen inspired a certain optimism. But as it turned out, this was too optimistic an optimism. The pike perch attacked our bait only from under a school of bream.
Fishing gradually turned into a kind of running after bream. Schools of these fish actively moved along the riverbed area of the bay, followed by pike perch.
In those moments when it was possible to find a flock, the various twisters - worm-shaped, narrow, driven vibrotails, as well as foam rubber, were ignored, one might say, almost completely. The exception, although very pleasant fish in terms of weight, were several catches on a large Noise in Hammertime color.
Often bites occurred while reeling, and not during a pause, during the falling phase of the bait.
At the most, you could earn an empty bite, or some kind of knock, which could easily be confused with touching a peaceful fish. The ideal option would be something wide-bodied, so to speak, shade-like, with a large “penny” for greater hovering in a promising place, and it was definitely not worth going small with the size. In the backpack there just happened to be a couple of packs of Mottom's Slayers, which fit this description perfectly.
The bait is not small, 12.5 centimeters, respectively heavy, about 11 grams, but equipped with a 6/0 offset hook and even more, so the weight of the weight at a depth of 6.5 meters was ideally 8-10 grams with the diameter of the cord used #2 according to the classification Mottomo.
The boat was positioned strictly to the side of the school of bream, and the bites occurred as the bait approached it. Naturally, it was a short period of time, I did/didn’t have time, and then I had to look again. Numerous “herds of leucorrhoea” were present in the bay, but not in many places.
In particular, these are some kind of dumps, a bumpy bottom with individual snags, riverbed areas with a noticeable difference in depth. If you were lucky enough to find a local, deep enough groove... You had to find this groove, then along its dumps you could see clouds of small fish stuck to the bottom. The pike was already in command here.
Even an artist can envy her selectivity in her preferences for the color of silicone lures. Consistency in predator captures was observed in the period from approximately 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
No, of course, even at a later period of time one could count on a bite, but this was already an episodic nature of “getting under the nose.” In those rare hours when the sun peeked out from behind the thick leaden clouds, the pike preferred the sleek, 12-centimeter form of the Shiner vibrator tail, made in Hammertime color.
On cloudy days, the same bait worked great in Red Green or Night Flight Chart, and of course the older Noise.
Inevitably, the days came when all predator activity ceased. One can only guess why this happens, the weather, the fat bellies of the fish filled with fry, etc. But I will leave this “behind the scenes”, since our task is still to catch, and not to pointlessly talk about ichthyology, in the knowledge of which we do not have academic degrees.
The only, partially effective way to seduce inactive fish into some kind of bite, in my case, was to overweight the weight of the weight, and double sharp, but short throws were performed with the rod.
Speaking of the rod. In the modern world of fishing, “good form” dictates that the length of the spinning rod for boat jigs should not be longer, but rarely does anyone mention the fishing conditions. Mottom's Spring 902 M, this 274 cm tall rig was my main tool on this trip.
She did an excellent job in strong winds, sending the baits where I needed them, and not where they would turn out when there was a gust of wind. Moreover, those same throws with this rod were easily performed practically with the hand. The cord is almost always taut, which ensures maximum control over the bait. Less overhang and shorter swing, this is important for fishing with two people from a small boat. A powerful, springy blank with such a length will not allow the fish to go into snags or get caught behind the anchor rope...
It’s probably worth mentioning the perch, because when nothing bites at all, the striped ones are a joy. In addition to the bycatch at deep points, you can visit the so-called “teapot”.
For an hour, the birds circle over the fry, which is squeezed to the surface by a flock of perch, and then dive into the water to grab the next victim. Local fishermen don’t bother too much, they fly into this natural action at full throttle, anchor in the center and throw their “garlands”. We are less categorical. We approached quietly at low speed, as close as the wind allowed. The Rattlin Saltar, in addition to its excellent flight, also has excellent catchability.
The wiring is basically a jig step, only the number of turns of the reel increases by two to two and a half times. Bites follow both on the fall and on the reel. As for the hooks, it should be attached to the outermost hole towards the tail. This way the bait takes a vertical position when retrieving and allows you to avoid most hooks. In other cases, a heavy (750 gram) unhook with loops of cables helps out. This rattlin has two sizes 60 and 70 millimeters. Both caught properly, except for the larger one; there weren’t many idle bites from small perch, but for that a pike often flew in...
When you arrive home, you involuntarily think about your last trip. You analyze, maybe you did something not quite right, and something just flew out of your head with the wind without ever trying it. But the fact remains undeniable; there is definitely no doubt about the chosen baits and tackles!
NHNCH everyone!!!
Kalyazin
This is an island where there is a place to relax with tents on the Volga. You can reach the city itself by train. If you want to go there, in the evening, especially before the weekend, a big problem arises with tickets. There are also buses, although there may not be an evening flight.
It is advisable to keep in touch with the organizers constantly. They should meet you at the station and bring you to the banks of the Volga. There you will board a boat and arrive at the island, where everything will already be prepared for your holiday, including tents and a fire. All this will cost 500 rubles per day. This amount includes a tent and sleeping bags. You can go boating, you can fish. There are very beautiful places there, creeks with water lilies, pine forests and warm water.
How to find trophy pike on Akhtuba
Amazing fishing opportunities in the Lower Volga, including Akhtuba, allow you not only to catch different species of fish, but also to master new fishing methods, experiment with new gear and, of course, catch worthy trophy fish.
Of course, the most popular and exciting is fishing for Volga predators: pike perch, pike, asp, catfish, perch.
Compared to other large reservoirs in our country, their species diversity here is very high, and their numbers are maximum. In addition to its abundance, it is on the Lower Volga and Akhtuba, including in the Trekhrechye region, that the probability of regularly catching large specimens is highest. And by the way, information about catching trophy pikes most often comes from these places.
At the same time, although pike on Akhtuba is a common and even widespread object of fishing, catches of individuals weighing more than 6-7 kg are far from often recorded. There is also no information about the targeted fishing of trophy pike specimens. The standard practice of pike fishing, as a rule, is to fish in oxbow lakes, on spills, and in most cases the usual prey is medium-sized pike weighing 1.5-3 kg, and taking fairly large pikes occurs occasionally. In addition, many fishermen have the mistaken opinion that for huge pikes they need to go fishing not to the south, but somewhere to the north or to Siberia.
The common pike (lat. Esox lucius) is now reaching very impressive sizes, since over the past few years reliable cases of pike weighing 24-25 kg have been recorded (in Sweden and the British Isles), and fish weighing 15-20 kg have been caught, although not often, but occur regularly throughout the species' habitat. This size of pike is certainly considered a record, but it is extremely rare to catch such an individual. At the same time, the attention of fishermen who are purposefully engaged in catching trophy specimens is focused on fairly large fish, but those whose catching occurs regularly and does not become a striking but random event in a lifetime. So a trophy specimen of pike can be considered an individual weighing over 10 kg. Pike grows to this size in almost any type of reservoir and in almost any natural zone. Another question is how often fish of this size are found in a given body of water, and accordingly, what is the probability of catching it.
I would like to add that I have come across such pikes (from 10 kg) in the Lower Volga and in other places, and I am sure that fishing of this kind can be planned.
From history: reliable sizes of pike in the Lower Volga in the old days
When getting ready to go fishing on Akhtuba once again, I often asked myself the question: are there really large fish left in more or less noticeable quantities on the Lower Volga? Is it possible to purposefully fish for trophy-sized pike? Or do such specimens come across only by chance?
The answer to this question was necessary to assess the situation in the area between Volgograd and Astrakhan, which was before the construction of the Volgograd hydroelectric station - the period until the end of the 50s of the last century.
This turned out to be a difficult task. Despite the fact that the Volga has always been of great importance in the structure of the freshwater fishery of our country, it was not possible to find such data. One old acquaintance, an ichthyologist by profession, came to the rescue, keeping in his archives a lot of useful statistics on fishing on the Volga until the river was regulated by dams. Extensive extracts were found based on fishing statistics from a fish procurement point located in the city of Akhtubinsk. For a long time, this receiving point received catches from fishing teams working in the adjacent areas of the Volga and Akhtuba.
The most important feature of the Volga section below Volgograd is its unique hydrological regime, formed at the Volgograd hydroelectric power station dam. As a result, the conditions in which fish live here are radically different from those that were here a hundred years ago. The environment, changed by man, was supposed to deal a severe blow to the Lower Volga pike.
The fact is that pike have adapted to breed very early in the spring, during the spring flood, be it in the reservoirs of the middle zone or the lower reaches of the Volga. Immediately after the ice drift, meltwater floods the floodplain meadows and in the sun the water quickly warms up to 7-8 degrees Celsius. This is where pike spawn.
Since the water temperature at which pike spawns is important and very
This is a conservative factor in spawning behavior; fish cannot ignore it and remain in the riverbed until the water rises and warms up. With the onset of warmer weather, pike eggs develop very quickly, and juveniles appear within a week. The pike fry immediately begins to feed on small crustaceans and insect larvae, which appear en masse among the warm floods. And after 3-4 weeks, by the time the cyprinids spawn, the squirrels already reach a length of 4-5 cm and become real predators. At this moment, huge masses of fry of perch, roach, bream, silver bream and other species appear in the water.
After the ice melts on the Lower Volga, dams release water before the flood. At the same time, in the spring, “dead water” is often discharged from the lower reaches of reservoirs to flush the riverbed and the space in front of the dam. As a result of such flow regulation, a powerful, long-term discharge of very cold bottom water occurs. But since the spill has not yet occurred, all the water flows along the relatively narrow bed of the Volga and Akhtuba, without spilling across the floodplain. Therefore, in the section of the Volga below the Volgograd hydroelectric station, before the flood begins, very cold, icy water flows, with a temperature of 2-4 degrees C, which cannot warm up in the weak spring sun.
I’ve been coming to Akhtuba for ten years in the spring, in March-April, and most often I observe an interesting pattern: in the Moscow region at the end of March at reservoirs and the Oka River, due to flooding with melt water, the water temperature in shallow waters sometimes reaches 8 degrees Celsius, pike spawn, but on the Lower Volga the water is cold, 2-3 degrees C, the pike is not going to spawn, everything happens at a later date. This is despite the fact that Akhtuba is located much further south.
Such a strange phenomenon, arising in connection with the regulation of the Volga riverbed in the lower reaches by the Volgograd hydroelectric power station dam, should lead to very sad consequences for pike. The spawning dates of pike shift and begin to coincide with the beginning of mass spawning of most cyprinids, and the spawning areas of pike and cyprinids coincide initially. It turns out that the emerging pike fry do not have enough time to literally start feeding on the white fry. This would not have happened in the case of the natural hydrological regime of the Volga. In addition, the newly hatched pike fry needs for food the same small crustaceans and larvae that the fry of roach, bream and other carp fish feed on. This leads to serious food competition and further slows down the growth of pike fry.
Suffering from the inability to feed on white fry, during this period almost equal in size to it, young pike should have died... But no - everything is happening the other way around: there are still a lot of pike on Akhtuba in ilmens, eriks, channels, backwaters and shallow reaches . There are no signs of a decline in its population in these places, or on the Volga itself either.
The Volga pike population, thanks to the incredible adaptability of this fish, has survived despite such a serious impact of the technogenic environment. But in the process of pike adaptation to new conditions, some biological parameters changed. For example, the diameter of mature eggs has increased: if previously the size of the eggs was no more than 2.3 mm, now in the Lower Volga it is up to 3.3 mm. As a result, larger fry emerge from the eggs, which can feed on a more varied diet and quickly switch to feeding on carp fish larvae.
In addition, pike in the Lower Volga have become much more voracious and are growing faster. By the end of the third week, juvenile pike already reach 5-6 cm, and in mid-June - 10-12 cm (this is much more than most other pike populations).
Thus, the extensive technogenic impact on the reservoirs of the Lower Volga has changed the biology of pike: its spawning has become late, simultaneous with the prey species, the juveniles emerge larger, faster-growing, the high growth rate is maintained for the rest of their lives, the preference for feeding on small prey also remains forever. And the result of all of the above is a relatively short life, smaller fish in the population. Nowadays, Lower Volga pike spawn 4-6 times during their lives and die mainly at 6-10 years, whereas previously they lived up to 18-20 years.
But this does not mean that there are no large pike left on Akhtuba - the results of fishing in these places remain very convincing - there are trophy pike here. I have caught many large pike weighing 6-8 kg, aged 8-10 years, and trophy specimens weighing more than 10 kg. The fact is that in each population there is always a part of individuals that differ in their individual life cycle. Therefore, part of the Lower Volga pike population still lives long and still reaches large sizes.
Where does Akhtuba’s trophy pike live? Is it possible to catch it purposefully?
As a rule, in the summer-autumn period in the shallow areas of the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain, I was not able to catch trophy-sized pike (more than 10 kg), despite the fact that there were quite a lot of specimens up to 4-5 kg. So, in my opinion, trophy pike do not appear in shallow areas of large and medium-sized rivers, except perhaps during the ban period, during spawning.
Therefore, it became clear that for targeted fishing for very large predators, one should look for them in open spaces of riverbeds and one more thing
This is confirmed by the same archival data on fishing statistics from the beginning of the last century. According to these data, fishing on the Volga took place during the period of open water with the help of cast seines in the bed of the Volga or Akhtuba, and the eriki and oxbow lakes were considered secondary fishing grounds and were almost not used.
In ordinary everyday practice, it is rare for a modern fisherman to be able to carefully study a reservoir and simultaneously take into account several structural features of a river section, such as: underwater terrain with depth differences; the speed and direction of water flows, the presence of reverse currents and the width of a given section in relation to the areas of relief elements (pits, edges, sandbanks). It is possible to find a rip current from the shore by simply throwing wood chips into the water, and having identified a promising place and tested its catchability in practice, you can fish on it for several seasons.
As already described, I soon became convinced of the very little prospects of shallow waters and areas with depths less than 4 m. I believe that for a very large pike to live, a “water column” of more than 6 m is required (in all my time of pike fishing, I only managed to catch toothy beauties weighing 9.7 and 10.2 kg on the horizon between 4 and 5 meters). All other trophy specimens weighing more than 10 kg were caught at a depth of more than 6 meters. In addition, it should be remembered that pike do not like strong currents and always choose a parking place taking into account the minimum resistance to the flow.
So the key to success in catching trophy pike in the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain lies in a painstaking search for its sites. And if you want to catch a worthy specimen, you should be patient and set aside time for a rather boring search and determine the speed of the current. Here are several areas characteristic of the habitat of large pike in the riverbeds of Akhtuba and Mangut (Kriushi) in Trekhrechye - this rule works for most lowland medium-sized rivers.
— Reach with a horizontal bottom
Such relief is formed on sharp bends of the river. So, at many turns of the Akhtuba channel, deep flowing holes with a fairly strong current appear. In this case, the hole comes close to the high bank, and on the other side it is usually adjacent to a wide reach. The depth of the reach with a 2-3 m edge breaks off into a wide platform or plateau with a more or less uniform depth of 6-8 m. The width of such a platform can be up to 200-300 m, and the length of the section is sometimes up to 1 km. In such areas, unique current systems are formed: a strong current on the rapids above the pit is replaced by a stream flowing twice as slow over the plateau.
The most important thing here is to find the place where the breaker stream begins at the end of the plateau (and it always exists in such places). This reverse current goes from shallow water near the shore towards the depths, to that same underwater plateau, moving water from the shore to the depths - this will be the stopping place for large pike.
The location of the habitats of large pike is always clearly tied to the depth and to the current pattern. Typically, trophy pike stand at horizons from 6 to 9 meters on a relatively flat bottom, in places where the current speed is half that of the channel core, and where there is a slanting current from shallow water to depth. The fact is that the flow of water in such areas carries small fish from shallow water to depth, directly “to the dinner table” of the predator - pike hunts only from ambush. In addition, in such areas, stable migration routes for small fish to feeding areas are formed, and pike use these.
The size of the boundaries of the habitat of trophy pike in such a place depends on the specific area. I managed to find three such characteristic places on Akhtuba, in the Trekhrechye region. The dimensions of these plateaus range from 100 x 30 m to 500 x 100 m in length and width, respectively. And yes, trophy pike are caught there almost every time.
— Backup zone in front of the island
Places of this type, as a rule, are located on relatively narrow sections of the channel, where there are no sharp bends of the river and no large channel holes. Here, a slow current zone forms near large islands that divide the channel almost equally. But not every island has conditions suitable for trophy pike habitat. The fact is that the most important factor in the presence of a large pike site is, again, the presence of an underwater plateau with depths of more than 6 m, with half the current speed and with a rip current from the shore to depth.
The size of large pike sites in island backwaters is always noticeably smaller than on reaches and plateaus. As a rule, such islands have small areas measuring 50-60 m in length and about 20 m in width, where the chance of catching a worthy toothy specimen approaches 100%.
I can’t say that there are a lot of trophy pike in the island backwater areas, but in any case, these are some of the most effective places for trolling. Often here it was possible to catch 1-2 pike weighing 9-11 kg per trip. And one day in the fall, in just such a place, I caught 11 pike weighing from 4 to 7.5 kg in three hours. This happened in the first half of the day in cloudy weather.
— Wide channels between the Volga and Akhtuba and its branches
We are talking about channels at least 2-3 km long and 100 meters wide with a weak current. And although the depths in them are usually small, you should look for areas with a depth of 5-7 meters. This is where all the local large pike accumulate.
In such places, areas where pike are caught may coincide with areas where pike perch are caught, but there are much fewer fanged fish here: the channels are the “pike kingdom.” There are few such large channels between the branches of the Lower Volga. There are only two or three of them in the Trekhrechye area.
The boundaries of areas where one can assume the presence of trophy pike in such channels depend on the length of the deep trough at the bottom. Usually they range from 150 x 20 m to 700 x 60 m. At the same time, there are never large pike in small round-shaped pits.
— Wide shallow waters with underwater trenches on the bottom
These peculiar areas of relief sometimes form in the most unexpected places: in the bed of the Volga or Akhtuba, in the channels connecting parallel branches. But there's a catch. The fact is that these same gutters, where the largest pike likes to stand, can just as unexpectedly disappear or move a considerable distance. Therefore, you should always verify their position using depth measurements.
As in other places, trophy pike in such shallow waters will still stay at depths of more than 6 m, but at the same time they will strive to settle in small gutters. The current in these depressions is weak and there are a lot of different juvenile fish. In the gutters above the greatest depths there is often a rip current from the shore to the depths, and it is there, in such areas, that large pike wait for prey, which is carried from shallow waters to depth. These places are most productive for pike fishing in early spring.
It seems to me that in such places the number of large pike is sometimes very large. So, when I pass over the gutters themselves, according to the echo sounder readings, large fish are constantly found in them, tightly pressed to the bottom at the deepest points. At first I mistook it for a catfish, but the catfish never pecked in these areas, but pike of various sizes, including very large ones, attacked the bait regularly. At the same time, it seemed that large pike used the deepest points in the gutters for ambush, since the bites themselves occurred at shallower depths adjacent to the gutters.
By the way, given that a large pike attacks the bait once and does not give chase, and its visibility from the bottom point of the trench is limited, you should place the bait as accurately as possible at the site of the toothy one, repeating the configuration of the recess as much as possible.
Another interesting observation: fishing for pike in the places described above gives a strange result. Either “small fish” weighing 1-2 kg, or single individuals weighing 10-11 kg are caught. Small things, of course, are quite annoying, there are a lot of them, but sometimes the use of large baits saves the situation. But clearly, these are very promising places.
Summarizing the above, I would characterize the most promising place for targeted fishing for trophy pike on Akhtuba in this way: a fairly flat wide reach (underwater plateau) with depths of 6 to 8 m, located away from the core, with a flow speed half that of the core channel and with the presence of a reverse flow, from the shallow shore to depth.
In a new place, I always start by looking for deep holes at sharp turns in the riverbed. Quite often, such pits can be identified visually by the presence of whirlpools due to water being pushed upward. These holes are usually not wide and often at the outlet, downstream, the flow accelerates, dragging along the surrounding mass of water - a current is formed from the shore to depth. I examine the right and left edges, paying special attention to the area on the far bank. Usually in such places the far shore is flat, and here it depends on your luck - if the reach is wide and relatively shallow, 4-6 m, and the current above it is half as much as at the core, then the coveted trophy will probably stand here.
Really large pike prefer wide areas of the channel with a hard bottom, where they can control a large area and at the same time have enough water above their head to feel safe.
On the variability of the river bottom topography in the Lower Volga and Akhtuba
Due to the special hydrological regime, significant changes occur in the riverbeds of the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain almost every year. The configuration of the channel, the underwater relief and the map of currents are not static - from year to year they undergo significant changes, but however, trophy pike do not leave their usual sites at all, but only seem to be redistributed depending on changes in the river.
So, for example, I fished for about 5 years in the same, very catchy place. It was well explored. The next fishing trip on Akhtuba brought stable catches in the form of pike perch, catfish and large pike weighing up to 14 kg. The pike was holding on a characteristic deep plateau away from the channel hole. But suddenly, for unknown reasons, the place began to change dramatically: the entrance to the channel became very shallow and became difficult to navigate; the underwater plateau has changed - a long shallow tongue stretches towards the exit from the hole from the right bank; the flow of water from the shore stopped, giving way to an alluvial flow from the depths to the shore. At the same time, the parking areas of large pike were divided - some of the predators moved upstream, and the other part - downstream. Naturally, the number of large pike in catches has sharply decreased: from two or three trophy specimens almost always to one near-trophy specimen, and then not every time. And small pike filled the entire space near the channel.
Subsequently, the situation only worsened at an increasing speed. The entrance to the channel was covered with sand and the river made a passage in another place, half a kilometer upstream, washing out a huge shallow water with a cliff into a hole at several edges. And the pike from this place went into a side channel.
This once again confirms that when the bottom topography and current map change, large pike do not leave their home completely, but simply move to a neighboring area with conditions close to the original ones. Therefore, in such a situation, it makes sense to spend time to understand the changes that have occurred and again find sites for large pike in this section of the river under new conditions.
Lures and techniques for catching trophy pike on Akhtuba
On Akhtuba, and in many other places in the Lower Volga, as a rule, the most common method of catching predators is track fishing or trolling. This method is especially effective for fishing in riverbed areas, as it allows you to fish a relatively large area of a reservoir in a short time and immediately “target” bait and tackle to specific conditions.
I use several types of wobblers made by RAPALA, YO-ZURI and MANN'S. According to statistics, the color of the bait does not matter much, but still the most catchy baits for pike turned out to be wobblers that imitate the color of roach and perch - the usual prey of pike. Sometimes in the spring, wobblers in the Fire Tiger color worked well.
There was no point in using large artificial baits like RIVER 2 SEA Down Sider Minnow or MANN'S Magnum Stretch. The effectiveness of such monsters, supposedly “purely for large pike,” especially in the spring, has always been much lower than that of wobblers measuring 6-10 cm. In summer and autumn, in shallow waters with deep gutters, you can try larger lures like RAPALA Super Shad Rap in order to reduce the number of bites from small pike and other predatory fish with a small mouth.
One more important note. The use of small baits for catching large pike has another meaning: almost every year the bottom topography and the pattern of the riverbed changes and the search for a trophy pike may for this reason be completely fruitless - the “big fish” may simply leave its usual place. After the next re-washing of the reaches and retaining areas in front of the islands, the parking place for large pike is usually occupied by pike perch. Here you can use small bait to take pike perch, which by its very appearance indicates that the big pike has left here.
When purposefully catching trophy pike on the track, I usually do the wiring as follows. I release the bait from the boat at a distance of at least 80-100 meters and move at a minimum speed, using a straight path (unlike pike perch, which prefers the vertical play of the bait, which manifests itself when the boat zigzags, this does not matter for pike)
Oddly enough, I would not call the grip of a trophy pike on the bait very sharp. It is not at all similar to the strike of a small pike or pike perch. The first blow of a really big pike is reminiscent of a catfish bite (it slowly swallows the bait) and only then, feeling resistance, the pike begins to fight desperately. At the same time, the behavior of the caught fish is completely unpredictable: it can give a “candle” a meter away or monotonously move away from the fisherman, unwinding the line from the spool, or it can rush towards and drag the line under the boat.
I also caught trophy pike on Akhtuba using a jig, but this bait works well mainly in small holes. Jig is more suitable for spot fishing in a specific place, but to catch a truly large predator you have to fish large areas of the reservoir and at different water levels.
What is the season - so is the pike?...But that’s not true!
The thing is, I fished in different seasons of the year. According to statistics, early spring (from the end of March to the beginning of the spring flood) and autumn (from the end of September to the beginning of November) turned out to be the most “fishy” for pike fishing. Later, from mid-November until the freeze-up, I didn’t come across any trophy specimens of pike at all. This is unlikely to be due to the fact that the fish stop feeding at this time. Most likely it moves to some other areas. I have had cases of catching trophies in the summer, but during this period small fish are active almost everywhere, and the wait for a worthy specimen is hampered by endless bites of small pike.
About the weather...When hunting for large pike, success will very significantly depend on the weather, since they react very sensitively to changes in the atmosphere. But I still haven’t been able to fully understand the dependence of the bite on the weather. In the past, when I first started target fishing for large pike, trophy hunting was most often successful on fine days with partly cloudy skies, stable pressure for several days and light winds.
I noticed that trophy pike on sunny days often attack the bait early in the morning, and on cloudy days - throughout the day. At one time I was sure that catching large pike on rainy days with strong winds and low pressure was pointless, but one incident completely changed my opinion on this matter. On an April day, in heavy rain and wind, I went out on a boat to Mangut, rather out of despair (the bad weather raged for the second day in a row), having fished a couple of conditionally promising places, I got a toothy beauty of as much as 11.2 kg. At the same time, there were no bites from small and medium-sized pike at all. Having perked up, I walked through two or three more areas and was rewarded with a qualifying result: two more pike for 8.3 and 9.2 kg, respectively. It turned out that such vile weather did not interfere with the bite of trophy-sized pike, and the rest of the predator was “asleep” at that moment. This unexpected result was, of course, taken into account and was confirmed many times during subsequent visits to Akhtuba in Three Rivers.
Thus, summarizing the experience over several years, I will assume that it is possible to purposefully catch large pike in almost any weather, but in bad weather this process is simplified due to the absence of interference in the form of a small predator. Probably, large pike hunt more or less evenly throughout the entire time, not really paying attention to the weather, while smaller ones, on the contrary, are highly weather-dependent.
And of course, bad weather will never stop you from relaxing in nature on Akhtuba, chatting with fellow fishermen and getting a lot of new pleasant impressions!
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Samara
If you go on vacation to the Volga with tents, then you need to choose places on the Vasilyevsky Islands. To do this, it is best to come to the city of Ekaterinovka, take a boat and get to the islands. If the season is good, places are sold out quickly. People come here for a month or 2 and can live as families.
Advantages: the water is very warm, it’s convenient to go down to the river, the sun warms up well.
If you want to relax where there are fewer people, then you can go to Gavrilova Polyana, or you can choose Zelenenky Island or Podgora.
Downstream
If you think about where people live with tents on the Volga, the places in Astrakhan are the coolest. But here’s the plus: everything here seems to have been created specifically for fishermen.
It is best to take a car and your own boat. The width of the Volga in this place is more than 2 kilometers. In addition, there are very beautiful panoramas here. It is also recommended to take a camera with you. Especially if you sail on a boat, the pictures turn out great. In summer the weather is warm and most often sunny. That's why people come here to sunbathe.
"Winged"
If you don’t want to spend too much, but want to have a good holiday with tents on the banks of the Volga, then you can go to a recreation center. At the same time, the staff will immediately show you the places where fish are found or where the most delicious mushrooms grow.
The base takes over the location on the banks of the Volga. You do not pay for the placement itself, only for the support. It costs 500 rubles. If you want to have fun, you can look at the services on the official website. Also, if you do not want to take a tent with you, you can rent one. Tables and chairs are also available for rent.
FISHING ON THE LOWER VOLGA
Avid “hunters” can fish in a variety of bodies of water: ponds, lakes, reservoirs and rivers. However, fishing on the lower Volga leaves an indelible impression, so people go there both in winter and summer, by train or car.
In the spring, male groups usually go to spawn, and in the summer, families and friends go on vacation and fishing in the lower Volga. You can, of course, buy a ticket to a camp site and stay there, but my friends and I prefer to set up a tent camp on the river bank.
To relax and fish on the lower Volga, you need to have with you a whole set of things, tools, gear and watercraft. Previously, the best and fastest watercraft was considered a kayak, but now these are inflatable PVC boats with motors of different power.
Arrival in Zamiany
The first time I came to the lower Volga for fishing and stopped on the river bank near the village of Zamiany. It is a fairly large village and has a ferry service. So, if desired or necessary, you can cross to the other side of the Volga, which is very convenient.
Vacationers set up their tents a few kilometers from the village, downstream of the river. On the bank of a channel flowing from the Volga, called Volozhka.
The bank and bottom of the channel are purely sandy. And on the banks of this channel they set up a huge tent city. Almost every tent has curtains in which salted fish is dried.
Since the shore is sandy, the tent must be well strengthened and, if possible, tied to a tree under which to place the tent. The winds are sometimes so strong here that they are carried away.
Catch
And here they catch fish either on the opposite bank of the Volga or on the fairway, or go downstream to a flooded barge. Small things hide there and, therefore, a predator hunts.
You can stand on the carp on the opposite bank of the Volozhka. Fans who want to catch pike perch at night put up donks with bells. When we arrived in Zamiany for the first time, there was a huge school of fry in the river.
The river was literally swarming. The flock then rose a kilometer, then descended. Well, all predators hunted the fry: pike perch, asp, catfish, pike, herring and even large ram. They caught the predator in this school of fry not only with a spoon, but also with an empty shiny hook.
Usually you tie two leashes onto a fishing line, cast them in and immediately pull out two predators. For fish, a shiny hook is like a fry: whoever grabs it first, pike perch or sabrefish, asp or herring.
I never thought that women were such passionate fishermen. A friend’s wife asked to come with us, and she and I crossed to the other bank in a kayak, and the river is about two kilometers wide.
It was about five in the evening, and in August it gets dark at about eight. The fishing was good, the fish tank was quickly filled, and I wanted to go back. So the woman takes off her T-shirt, ties her sleeves and asks for more fishing, and it’s already getting dark, I say that’s enough, and she asks, well, one more, then one more. I only calmed down when it became dark.
Well, we got it from her husband. On the other hand, he is, of course, right: poachers fly along the Volga in the dark on motorboats and won’t notice how they crush a kayak.
How to store fish
We caught a fish, but how can we preserve it? It’s too hot and it will spoil in no time. It seems simpler: roll the carcass in salt, put it in a tank, press it down with a weight and lower it into a dug cellar. But everything is not so simple: in the heat the carcass is not salted, it is covered with a salt crust on top, and rots inside
The newcomers threw so many fish into the pits with tears in their eyes. Therefore, we had to gut it and only then salt it. Of course, gutted potatoes lose their attractiveness, so some craftsmen prepare a salt solution - brine, so that raw potatoes float in it.
They took the solution into a syringe and syringed the carcass, after which they dumped it. We salt the gutted fish for 5 days, then pour it into the fish tank and take it to the river to wash. We wash it for about six hours and take it to the canopy.
We make the canopy out of poles, nail it down, pull ropes, about twenty of them. We hang the fish on a rope, while a merciless fight is waged against the flies, which immediately flock to the smell. We install the canopy in the shade, but so that it is well ventilated.
As soon as we hang the fish, we immediately cover it with mesh material, we cover it with old tulle. In about five days the dried fish is ready, you can go get some beer.
Volzhskoe village
When we stop near the village of Volzhsky, a favorite place for fishing there is a gas pipeline. The gas pipeline is laid along the bottom and covered with stones. And a wide variety of fish hide and hunt there: perch, pike perch, pike, ram, and most importantly, bream stands there.
The only bad thing is that poachers tighten their nets there. Therefore, until you find out where they are stretched, you will lose none of your gear. We fish with spoons, wobblers, cast-master or jig head. For bream, we tie two leashes with hooks and a lead sinker to the main line. Melt the lead over a fire and pour it into a tablespoon or dessert spoon.
The current there is very strong, every year the shore changes its shape, and no matter how much the shore is strengthened with stones, the water washes them into the river. Therefore, putting up tents on the very shore is very dangerous. It seems that the bank is high and you can’t see how the current is washing it away. How many times have I seen the shore collapse along with large trees.
In the evening we catch the fry and load the line of hooks with thirty. We tie a plastic water or beer bottle to the weight. In the morning we check the stream, there is always either a pike perch, a catfish, or a perch.
We also install donks on an elastic band with a bell. Those who have patience and desire can sit and catch 10-15 kg carp. We cook fish soup from the caught fish, fry and smoke it.
For long-term storage, we make cold smoked fish. To do this, we are making a house one and a half meters high and 0.6 meters wide. We stretch plastic film over the house. From the house we dig a trench as wide and as deep as a spade. The length of the trench is 10 meters.
We cover it with anything, but where there is a fire, we need to cover it with a sheet of iron. Next, we either bring a bag of sawdust with us or collect rotten wood. After which we make a fire and throw into it either a handful of sawdust or rotten wood. Remove the film and hang the prepared salted fish.
We make a small hole on top of the film for smoke to escape. The smoking process continues continuously for two days. But when you remove the film, you will see a hanging golden carcass with an amazing taste and aroma. In addition to smoked, you can also make sturgeon kebab with an unforgettable taste.
You can also go to Erik and catch crayfish or buy them, here the boys bring them and sell them by the bucketful. We go to buy tomatoes and watermelons and stock up on melons. If you come here to relax, you won’t regret it, fishing on the lower Volga, always a variety of fish, watermelons, tomatoes, vegetables straight from the garden.
