Features of catching rotan using a spinning rod
Even if the reservoir is heavily silted, or is located in an urban area where no one is simply able to survive because of the garbage, rotan can calmly live there, feed and reproduce. For this reason, he is very loved by fishermen, who do not always have enough time in their lives to travel outside the city to fish on the shore.
But be prepared for the fact that debris and grass will end up on your line, which means you will have to remove them from the line.
Rotan weighing from one hundred grams to a kilogram can be caught using a spinning rod.
If there are shuks in the reservoir, then there is no point in looking for rotan in the vicinity. He bypasses the territory of the toothy predator a mile away. But if there are few large predators, the population of this fish grows noticeably, simplifying your search task.
Another advantage of rotan is that it is not picky about food. It bites on pieces of meat, ordinary worms, and lard. In general, food of animal origin. So chicken that has been stale for a couple of weeks can be an excellent treat for him. You can catch big fish with live bait. He is often well caught on local river fish, which are part of his natural diet, and does not arouse any suspicion.
Note to the fisherman! Rotan often hides in ambushes. They can serve as any, even small shelters. He does this not because he is afraid of anyone. On the contrary, these are his hunting methods, allowing him to attack quickly and unexpectedly. Exhaustive pursuit of prey is not for him. Therefore, a fast-moving spinning bait will not arouse his enthusiasm at all.
The fish is known for its gluttony. She can pounce on prey and tear it with her teeth, no worse than some tropical piranha.
Read more:
Catching chub on a feeder
Tackle
Almost any ultralight spinning rod is suitable for rotan. The fact is that when catching it, in most cases, various types of silicone baits are used. Without any loading. The requirements for a spinning rod are as follows: it must be fast enough to cast light baits far, and as sensitive as possible in order to have constant contact with the bait and feel any touch of the fish. Rotan, despite his predatory nature, takes the bait carefully and immediately spits it out if he suspects a trick.
Fishing line or braided cord? Here the answer is obvious. Of course, a braided cord, thin. Only the cord will provide us with maximum sensitivity, and when fishing for rotan it comes to the fore.
Spinning rod equipment for catching rotan
There is no point in taking heavy fishing rods for rotan. The ideal option for us is ultralight spinning rods with a test weight of up to ten grams. Take a sensitive rod, because you shouldn’t expect strong bites from this fish. Fishing takes place vertically. In the thickets they find a window into which the bait is thrown.
What to catch? The bait is often taken in a variety of ways. This could be a small silicone worm, a wobbler, or a jig head. Someone should try catching rotan using drop shots.
We'll start with jig baits. They, like twisters, are light (weighing up to five grams). The cast is meant to be not too far, close to the fish location area.
For example, we cast about thirty centimeters away, gently lower the bait and begin to bring it towards the fish. Don't expect a bite right away. From the second or third time, Rotan gets used to the idea that everything is in order and attacks. A flavored silicone worm should have a taste. Because the fish will not chew a tasteless piece of rubber.
The following option is often used. First, attention is attracted with the help of a minnow. But it is too big for this small fish. Therefore, the bait is immediately changed to an ultra jig. The casting distance is not important here at all. Fish even close to the shore. Rotan comes as close as possible without fear. Wobblers are less effective in this regard, although they also catch fish.
Lures
When fishing for rotan, various types of spinning baits can be used. I caught both wobblers and spinners, but silicone baits worked best. And when catching large rotan, “edible rubber” comes to the fore. I have repeatedly observed in clear water how a large sleeper takes the bait and instantly spits it out.
The rotan holds the “edible rubber” in its mouth a little longer, and the spinner has the opportunity to feel the bite and successfully hook the predator. Of specific models, I can recommend Awaruna silicone baits from Pontoon21.
Installation on an offset hook without weight should be used, since a large rotan will feel any weight or open hook and immediately spit it out. In addition, mounting on an offset hook will allow you to avoid numerous snags on underwater vegetation and snags, and a truly large rotan rests on precisely such places.
Fishing tactics
What is the most important thing in spinning fishing for rotan? If you have decided on the bait, then the next step is wiring.
We try to traditionally start with a stepwise approach. Our tactics will be simple. First, we wait for the sinker to fall to the bottom. Then you need to make a small jerk, after which the coil winds three or four turns. We stop and play with bait. Swing the rod with a high amplitude, alternating this with more sudden movements.
We also try to microjig in waves, being about twenty centimeters from the fish.
Two or three such casts and the fish loses its head, starting the hunt for bait. A silicone worm is also good in this regard. It is strung through the middle. It often happens that the bite occurs right while diving into the water.
Note to the fisherman! Choose a color depending on the pollution of the reservoir. The more turbid the water, the brighter the bait is needed. Often, instead of standard brown and red shades, it is worth taking orange and pink. They are more noticeable for rotan. As for the use of leashes when fishing, practice has shown that they do not have a significant effect.
The drop shot shows an excellent level of efficiency. This is a good option for long casting. And even a small stick can be used as a load. This bait will help solve problems in cases where everything around is very overgrown, there are large snags and other obstacles. We take the weight of the load small, otherwise the bait will fall through sharply
Read more:
Bream fishing - gear and tactics
Wiring is always slow. First you drive smoothly, then jerk. Otherwise, you can scare away the rotan, who simply will not believe in the game.
Where and when is the best time to catch rotan?
If you are going fishing in the spring, then you should do it in the morning. Stock up on 2-3 cm of spinners, or make a little more from foil yourself. Place a tee, a sinker and take fresh meat for the bait. If you fish with a worm, the catch will be small. The fish is so omnivorous that it can even be caught for the meat of its own kind.
In the fall, catch windows in the grass. And as soon as the temperature begins to drop noticeably, look for rotan in the pits. Then it is most effective to fish with a long, preferably seven-meter fishing rod. At this time, it bites well on large worms and fry.
It is worth recognizing that catching rotan has never been one of the difficult tasks. Especially in those reservoirs where this fish is found in large quantities. If you have a little patience, you can safely count on pulling out a fish weighing 800 grams, or even more. Or medium size, but a lot. You won't have to wait too long.
Catching rotan: teapot tips for beginners
Several years ago, in a fishing periodical, I came across an article about catching rotan with a spinning rod. The first reaction was predictable - a bewildered shrug of the shoulders: apparently things are really bad with fish among Muscovites, if they have come to such a life as to catch rotan with a spinning rod. Could I have thought then that “this cup would not pass away from me?”
It is extremely rare for an event to happen spontaneously, out of the blue; there is always a chain of some factors that precede it. The first such factor for me was the transition to “light weight” spin fishing. Then, and incidentally, during a completely different search, on the OnlySpin Youtube channel, for the first time, a video about catching rotan with a drop shot and weki was watched from start to finish youtube.com/watch. It didn’t evoke any response then either: well, the guys catch rotan using exotic methods and let them catch it - it happens...
And then there was an extremely unfavorable weather conditions for fishing with light jigs at the end of September - beginning of October. It was not blowing like a joke and there was no question about a foray onto the Neva. In addition, I had completely chosen my monthly limit of funds, which I allocate to myself for fishing, my wife got sick, and only then did I remember that there is a park across the road, and in it there are swamps (officially ponds) with rotans. Well, if the card fell like that, then purkua wouldn’t be a problem.
Perhaps it was the stars that were so aligned (however, you can see a sign of fate after the fact in anything), but on the eve of Day “H” a report appeared on the portal about a campaign against rotan Mikhail (esox) fish-hook.ru/po…dil-1920/ (Allerdings69) https://fish-hook.ru/ar...ok-2365/ .
I took my standard (don’t think anything good about it - at that time it was the only one in this weight category) world-light-jigging set with me to the pond: spinning rod MC Solpara SPS-T762M (229cm/0.5-7 g), Daiwa reel Revros MX2004, with Yamotoya Sheller Resin PE #0.4 cord. Since the wind, gear and depths of the ponds did not allow me to use a purely microjig (fishing with unloaded rubber was not even considered as an option), I decided to rely on lead rigs: a non-classical split shot and Carolina. I started with the furthest one from the house and the road and, according to the memories of four years ago (I once tested homemade jerks in this pond in late autumn, and in the summer I constantly saw float fishermen here), the deepest pond and Carolina with a load of 3 grams of olive. Alas, nothing was caught except grass, there weren’t even any bites. The same thing happened on the second pond, and on the third, and on the fourth... And then I got tired of it and decided to use a drop-shot with a weight (homemade Cheburashka) 3.9 g and... the process got off the ground - I felt the first bite. After the third bite, I felt that the rotan was not a perch and there was no need to rush to hook it. A very thoughtful conclusion, especially considering that as a child, when fishing from ice, I saw exactly how rotan takes bait. Be that as it may, but on some kind of retrieve, after a long and leisurely chewing of the slug (I was fishing at that moment on a CF Cruel Leach 2 inch), I caught my first rattan. The only shame is that such a significant event was honored with a photo shoot using improvised means - the batteries in the digital camera ran out, and the case with spare ones naturally remained at home. I had to shoot with an old Nokia 6300. I changed the bait to a CF Tipsy in the hope that a slightly smaller bait size would give a slightly larger realization. I made a mistake. Happens. Nevertheless, I still caught the second rotan. Although it pecked on each trip, and more than once. After several fishing trips here, I can say that this is a unique feature of this pond: a lot of small, ever-hungry rotan. By and large, the weight for the equipment could have been used less, up to 3 grams. If it weren't for the wind.
If you think that this fishing was followed by an in-depth analysis of what happened, the study of some materials available on the Internet about rotan fishing, then you are completely in vain to think so. This all finally happened, but alas, in the process of working on this material, And at that time, the first fishing experience was considered nothing more than a substitute for the usual fishing on the Neva, a forced and temporary measure. How something temporary relates to practice was discussed not so long ago and therefore I will not repeat it. The first experience was followed by a second and a third. All of them followed the same scenario: windy weather made the lower light jig on the river, if not hopeless, then certainly an unpredictable activity, and a trip to the park for rotan. Even the fishing method did not change (that’s how I caught all these drop-shot forays) only the spinning rods were changed according to the weight of the load, which in turn depended on the strength of the wind. The second exit was with Salmo Elite Microtech Jig {200 cm / 2-10 g) with a load of 6.7 g used fish-hook.ru/po...os/40303/ and again Solpara but now the equipment was 5.5 g. https:// www.fish-hook.ru/polzovateli/1970/photos/40409/ Well, I finally looked online at some animation options for the primaki, and then quite by accident.
A few words about the equipment itself. Having first become acquainted with it three years ago, I came to the conclusion that for home harvesting the best option is the classic one, in which the hook is tied to a fishing line or fluor in this way:
A simpler method of tying a hook using a Palomar knot, in my opinion, is mainly suitable for tying a rig directly while fishing - the knot turns out to be less strong. Since the “bedding horizon” of the fish (this applies not only to rotan) is unknown in advance, we do not tie the sinker, leaving an overhang of half a meter, and when fishing we select the distance from the load to the hook, securing the load with a knotless fastener.
A little about fishing rods and lures. From my point of view, the optimal action for animating a bait on a DS rig is medium-fast, or, alternatively, a stick with a solid tip. The bait for rotan and standing water can be absolutely anything. I fished with whole vibrating tails, Cruel Leach, Tipsy, Aji Meat slugs, Troutino M tadpole, and silicone scraps from larger baits. The main requirements for the bait are its plasticity, resistance to the sandpaper of rotan teeth and, preferably, “edibility” - rotan extremely rarely grabs the bait on the move with this equipment. Much more often he chews “thoughtfully”
In general, on these two fishing trips, rotans were caught regularly, of different sizes: from microbes the size of a little finger, to “trophy” specimens for a given puddle. At the end of the third fishing trip, we managed to catch small rotans on every cast. By the way, I have not yet managed to catch a larger rotan than in the photo.
Size slightly larger than average
Local trophy
Microbe
Standard size
The fish were caught, but at the same time the suspicion grew stronger that catching rotan in a more sporting way - for example, with a microjig or a weckie - would not be such an easy task and fishing would then be little different from usual.
Then in my fishing “wardrobe” there was a stick with dough up to 4 grams and I decided to try “mikrushnik”, which is what I devoted part of the fourth fishing trip to. Indeed, everything turned out to be not so simple: if perches on the Neva were regularly caught with a 3-gram Cheburashka, then for rotan in this pond even one and a half turned out to be too much. I had to reduce the weight of the load to 1 gram. In addition, for a long time I could not find the necessary wiring: standard single and double casts, wiring in the “Russian style” (two turns - pause), wiring with a rod with a “shaking” did not give any results. The result was brought by wiring when, during the fall phase, vibrations of the rod tip in a vertical or horizontal plane followed (I got a bite both ways).
The first rotan caught on a microjig
Cheburashka 1 gr
So far the largest rotan caught with a microjig
After this fishing, I decided to consult with the master - K. Kuzmin, on the forum of his website.
Me: Konstantin Evgenievich, you didn’t notice in which phase of the retrieve the rotan takes more often: on the fall of the bait or on the rise. I did catch my first rotans with a microjig (a collapsible Cheburashka 1.0 g + a Decoy Worm 19 size #10 offset jig - it looks like a large jig), but the rotans only pecked on the fall with animation (when - small movements of the tip of the spinning rod in the horizontal plane, when - light "vibration" in vertical). KK: Despite the apparent simplicity of catching rotan, you have to adapt to it every time. Including wiring the bait. If it's a micro-jig, then yes - more often on the fall with movement. Drop shot - in different ways, but still more often - when the load is on the bottom and lightly rocking with slow dragging and stopping. But in general, the best thing is veki. The wiring is clearly visible in the video.
Here is the video mentioned: youtube.com/watch
I tried to devote some of my time to this type of fishing on my fifth fishing trip. But obviously he did everything wrong: due to the lack of specific weights for veki (“cloves”), he tried to use a rather large but light little fish (0.35 g), light-accumulating, as a weighting agent, for catching smelt. A 0.07 mm cord in a wind of 4-6 m/s did not allow wiring - the bait was blown by the wind, and even due to the windage of the cord, it rose to the surface under the influence of the wind. After practicing for about 40 minutes, I closed this shop until it was clarified, so to speak. And, apparently, the development of this type of fishing - with veki - will continue in the next season. These are the impressions and thoughts
Cargo for the veka
"Strong but light"?
Thanks to those who made it through this multi-letter puzzle to the end. And giant rotans or other significant trophies to everyone!
