Baldu fishing is known as a fairly old method of fishing, which in its principle and technique has survived unchanged to this day. The only difference was the improvement of the equipment, which today is assembled from modern fishing materials and accessories. Efficiency and versatility helped this interesting method of hunting not to get lost among the many types of fishing, and such qualities are always valuable in fishing and give positive results in the form of catches, regardless of the fishing conditions.
In the further material of the article, we will look at the Balda fishing tackle in its design solutions, and also discuss the technique of fishing with this ancient equipment based on the conditions on the reservoir and the seasons of the year. In addition to the information listed, the angler will learn about the types of fish for which the equipment works best. We also note the fact that the article will be useful for fans of both winter ice fishing and the large army of summer fishermen.
What is a fishing rod
Balda tackle is an artificial bait, largely positioned as a tool for catching predatory fish. Characterizing the bait, we can say that it is something between a vertical spoon and a jig, and the bait fishing technique has borrowed most of its techniques from these methods. The main body of the equipment is a weight that has a fastening eyelet or hole in its upper part for winding the fishing line. The type of cargo varies from cylindrical to drop-shaped or pear-shaped. The weight is strung on a fishing line, and a single hook is mounted on its sides, also freely threading them through the fastening eyelet onto the fishing line.
The weight and hooks hang on a blind loop, at the base of which a tie is formed to connect the equipment with the main fishing line. In its appearance, the Balda bait imitates a small insect; this imitation is especially noticeable when tossing the equipment, when the hooks slide up the fishing line, reminiscent of the movement of the legs of a living object. To make it attractive, multi-colored beads are strung on the hooks, and the load itself can be painted in a color that is interesting for the fish being caught.
Materials for making the bulldozer
The materials for making the bulldozer can be very different. Just keep in mind that in fishing conditions, the body of a fishing rod should sink much faster than its hooks. Otherwise, the whole point of catching fish with this bait is lost.
Let me explain. Imagine that the body of the bulldozer is made of light material, say, plastic, which has a low specific gravity.
Then, in real fishing conditions, the steel hooks of the bulldozer will tend to fall to the bottom of the reservoir much faster than a body made of light material. For this reason, after a vertical drop of a fishing rod by an oncoming flow of water, the hooks simply cannot be torn away from the bait.
It should be the other way around: the body of the bulldozer, made of heavy material, must overtake hooks of any size when falling. Only in this case will the bully be able to move his hooks - “paws”.
And in order to reduce the rate at which the hooks fall, they are fitted with voluminous cambric-shaped nozzles made from materials that have a very low specific gravity. Then, in general, the specific gravity of the hooks is greatly reduced.
The most popular materials for making the body of a homemade bulldozer are round lead profiles. You can make a fishing rod from a thick welding electrode cleared of flux.
Some craftsmen use very exotic materials to make bulldozers. Perhaps you came across a bullhead while fishing with one of the fishermen, whose body was carved from a copper bullet.
Suitable for making the body of a homemade fishing rod and a soldering iron tip made of red copper, if you find it in a specialized store and buy it separately from the heating tool.
But the most common material used to make bodies for fishing tackles is considered to be heavy and malleable lead.
Balda for fishing - varieties
Even such narrowly targeted gear has two types of bait assembly, which differ in their design features from each other, and therefore have a different pattern of play when retrieving.
The first and most common type of beam has a so-called prefabricated structure, when all three elements, two hooks and the weight itself are independent of each other and strung alternately on a blind line loop, in which the sinker occupies a central position between the hooks. For this type of rig, the sinker has only one attachment point at the top of the sinker.
The second type of bait is distinguished by the structure of the load, which, in addition to the main fastening element, has two additional loops on its sides, intended for mounting hooks. This type of equipment can be located either in a blind loop or simply at the end of the tackle cord. This type of boom can only be used on hard bottom soils, since when inserted into silt, the sinker along with the hooks will sink, going into the silt, and the predator will not notice it, unlike the first design, the hooks of which will remain on the surface, sliding freely in a loop.
Lead body for fishing
To begin with, we will make bodies for baits called “fishing sticks” from a lead rod. Lead is the most common non-scarce metal; fisherman can use it to make heavy jigs for their fishing trips.
To reduce time costs in the manufacture of each body of the beam, it is better to take a round lead rod with the required cross-sectional diameter, which we may not have.
Then, to subsequently make the body of a fishing rod, we melt lead waste in an old frying pan or a can of canned meat using the technology described in the article “Lead for homemade jigs”
Next, using a knife or chisel, we cut out the rod shown under the title of the article from a lead blank (casting).
The lead blank is specially drawn with uneven edges, which in subsequent manufacturing processes for body decoys will take on a completely acceptable shape.
To do this, lightly hammer the ribs of the cut lead strip with a hammer and roll out the rounded, uneven piece on a metal plate (frying pan) under a wide metal plate, giving the rod a round shape.
If you want to make several bodies for a fishing rod from lead blanks of different diameters, then use the technical process described in the article Preparing a Uralochka jig.
Next, from a round lead rod we chop blanks of bodies (weights) for the “buldo” (or for fishing “devils”). The weight of the bait bodies should be tied to the fishing conditions on our fishing trips.
If you visit deep-sea reservoirs on your fishing trips, then make the bullhead bodies heavier. If necessary, some of the lead blanks can be slightly increased in diameter by placing them on the cut end and flattening the lead with a hammer.
All that remains is to give the bodies of the fishing rod the necessary shape. To do this, we roll out the lead blanks, giving them the shapes of cones with truncated tops shown in the photograph.
My lead bait bodies were rolled out under a wide file with a rather worn notch. The body of the bullhead in the shape of a truncated cone in real fishing conditions is less likely than others when dropping the bait and falls on its side.
At the last stage of manufacturing, we cut the lead body of each fishing rod to the required length and process it with a file. The most common body shapes used by fishermen for lures called “fishing stick” are shown in the figure under the title of the next article.
But you can also make the body of the bulldozer by casting lead into molds according to the method described in the article “Molds for casting jigs.” This process is more labor intensive and you won't get as much variety of weights as the method suggested here.
What time of year can you use Balda?
Fishing with balda can be carried out under any conditions, both during the open water season and when ice covering is installed on reservoirs. Many fishermen mistakenly believe that they can only use the cannon for fishing in winter when fishing from ice, which is a complete misconception. In summer, the tackle is no less effective in its catchability and is especially convenient when fishing in heavily overgrown reservoirs, where the use of other fishing methods is completely impossible.
In open areas of water, spot fishing is carried out in places of bottom anomalies and obviously known areas of water areas where there are accumulations of fish - in snags, near fallen trees and near flooded objects from the results of construction and shipping activities. Baldoy is caught both from the banks and from boats, using a technique similar to fishing with a nod or a summer jig. In winter, fishing is much more convenient, because on the ice you can get to any promising point and tap quite accurately, as in fishing slang they talk about the technique of fishing with this tackle, an interesting place.
Fishing for fish in the summer
Fishing for fish in the summer from the shore and in the winter are two types of fishing with different possibilities.
In winter, unlike in summer, fishermen have no restrictions when moving on the ice. Therefore, they catch fish on the bulldozer with comfortable short fishing rods wherever they see fit.
Due to the inconvenience associated with controlling a long telescopic fishing rod, the technique of catching fish from the shore in the summer does not provide fishermen with such opportunities, where the fishing result largely depends on external factors.
For example: gusts of wind can interfere with high-quality fishing due to the considerable windage of a long rod, which significantly reduces the convenience of catching fish during summer fishing.
It is more difficult in the summer to adapt to catching fish with a long rod in the windows among the algae. There is less chance of unhooking a bait caught on something during summer fishing.
I will give some details on how to catch fish in the summer with a long fishing rod, taking into account some negative factors.
What kind of fish is this bait used for?
Regardless of the fishing time, the balda is considered a universal tool with which you can catch not only predatory fish, but also most peaceful species of fish. This is due to the fact that, imitating an underwater insect or beetle, the bait arouses the interest of any fish, being a familiar and familiar food object. In the classics, the bulldozer is a direct tool for catching perch and pike perch. By manipulating the dimensions of the bait, the volume of the load and the size of the hooks, pike are successfully caught with the tackle. In addition to predators, it is quite effective to catch bream, roach, ruffe and crucian carp using small bait sizes. With a certain fishing technique and equipment, this type of bait is suitable for catching grayling. It is worth noting that despite such a decent list of fish species possible for catching, fishing techniques and strategies remain practically unchanged, and this fully characterizes the versatility of the equipment.
Body shapes of fishing rod
The figure shows the body shapes of a homemade reelless bait called “fishing stick”. From the point of view of the correct operation of the hooks, the most unsuccessful is the body of the bulldozer in the shape of a cylinder.
But lead weights of baits in the shape of cones with cut off tops also require correct orientation in space, depending on the design features of the fishing rod. I explain what is printed with an example.
In the picture in gray I show the same body of a homemade fishing rod of a cone shape, made without soldering the hooks, with an incorrectly (in the left position) and correctly (right) pierced hole for winding fishing line with hooks.
The fact is that a bulldozer with a body in the form of a cone turned downward turns out to have a very high center of gravity. Therefore, during a vertical drop, the load of the fishing bait tends to turn 180 degrees, and the wiring of the boom in the water becomes lubricated.
In addition, the hooks on the body of a homemade bait in the shape of a cone with an inverted top will not be able to slip through to the hole pierced in the lead blank.
Then the hooks will take a position almost perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the body of the fishing rod, which cannot add attractiveness to the bait in the eyes of the fish, surprised by ignorance of such simple things.
The homemade fishing rod, shown in the right position of the picture, is devoid of these shortcomings. But here we are talking only about the design of a fishing rod with hooks sliding along the fishing line. For a boom with a hinged hook connection, you will need the body shape shown in the picture on the left.
On other modifications of homemade baits, the cone-shaped load can be turned upside down. But only with good symmetry of all elements on the fishing body when balancing the bulldozer.
How to fish with bullfish
Fishing on a bulldozer has a fairly clear and simple principle. When the bait, or rather its weight, is placed at what the fisherman thinks is a promising stopping point, they hit the bottom, raising clouds of turbidity, which arouses interest in any fish, provoking it to approach the tool’s operating area. Further, noticing a game that imitates an insect, the fish goes out to attack an attractively behaving object and in this way ends up self-hooking on the fisherman’s hook. But like any other type of fishing, this method of catching a trophy has its own nuances related to the wiring technique and the equipment of the rod, which will ensure the supply of equipment to the fishing site, maintain the parameters necessary for the animation of the bait, and also help to fish out the caught trophy. We will talk about the nuances of fishing in different conditions in continuation of our material.
Fishing in winter
Winter fishing with balda is more widespread than fishing with this bait in open water, and this is due precisely to the accessibility of access to promising fishing points. To make it easier to work with bait, use winter fishing rods with a hard plastic whip, which ensures clear play and reliable hooking of fish. The size of the winter fishing rod directly depends on the weight of the rod used. Balalaika type fishing rods are used to catch small fish. For catching pike and pike-perch on a massive-sized cannon, a winter spinning rod with a whip of 30–50 cm is quite suitable.
When fishing on the balda in winter, use nylon fishing lines with a thickness of 0.12-0.25 mm, installing fluorocarbon leashes for pike, which do not hamper the play of the bait so much. Do not stay on one hole for more than two to three minutes, making five to seven cycles of playing with equipment. Active fish, even during this short period of time, will detect their presence in the fished area by biting.
Important! For passive fish, hooks must be equipped with bait; most often this role is played by bloodworms, maggots or burdock worms.
When fishing with predatory fish, it is necessary to have a hook, which helps in landing and removing fish caught by the cannon from the hole.
Fishing with bullfish in summer
In open water, hunting with a cannon can begin after the ice melts, fishing in the coastal zone in shallow waters. But the best results are obtained when fishing with balda in the summer, when reservoirs are covered with a dense carpet of surface aquatic vegetation. It is more effective to fish from a boat, equipping a fly rod or Bolognese rod with a nod mounted on a quiver tip. To install the equipment, carbon fiber telescopic fishing rods 3–4 meters long are used. Monofilament fishing lines with a diameter of 0.2-0.3 mm are used as the main cord.
With the help of such simple gear, the simulator is delivered to the gaps between the vegetation, carrying out 5-7 cycles of play and, if there are no bites, they move to another place. Just like in winter, when fish activity is low, you can put bloodworms, maggots or pieces of dung worm on the hooks. In this way, hunting for bully in promising places can be carried out right up to the freeze-up.
Perch search tactics
The tactics of searching for a striped predator when fishing with a “balda” are not much different from fishing with other gear. For some, it will be a revelation that the “bulda” is a tackle that catches in almost any conditions. If there are no bites in a certain place for a long time, then, as a rule, there are no fish in this location. The key to success is to actively search for a predator, regardless of the type of water area.
If fishing takes place in winter, the most promising areas for this time of year are fished first:
- along the first ice - at the border of aquatic vegetation, in flooded shallow waters with the presence of bushes, driftwood and snags, on the upper edges and areas with anomalies of the bottom relief. At the beginning of winter, the predator continues to “graze” near its favorite summer locations;
- in the low season - below the edges, in places of exit from holes and dumps, in areas with a sandy and rocky bottom, places with a good oxygen regime;
- end of winter, beginning of spring – shallow areas near the border with aquatic vegetation.
The search for perch sites on the river begins with exploring attractive areas along the coastline: driftwood and snags sticking out of the water, steep banks and slopes, trees that have fallen into the water.
In the summer, perch is caught in a plumb line using a boat. The presence of a vessel makes it easier to find schools of perch and makes it possible to carry out classic bait fishing. After all, as mentioned earlier, this tackle involves active and dynamic play, which is only possible when fishing with winter fishing rods.
The concentration of the predator and its activity in summer largely depend on the time of day and weather conditions. Perch is not a heat-loving fish species, so it is most active when the water warms up to a temperature of 20-22℃. If the temperature of the aquatic environment surrounding it becomes higher, its activity decreases. At this time, he tries to go to deeper places rich in oxygen.
Searching for the striped robber in the heat is a tedious task and most often futile. An exception to the general rule is fishing in the morning and evening hours. It is at this time that the predator’s peak activity occurs, when it goes to the shallows to feed. At night, the perch does not bite at all and its capture at this time is purely an accident.
In summer, a good guide to finding schools of perch is a concentration of seagulls hunting for small fish. If you notice such a concentration of “feasting” birds, be sure that a perch is also staying nearby.
Typical habitats for perch in summer are flooded trees and boulders, objects casting shadows, the border of aquatic vegetation, windows between thickets of water lily leaves.
A game
The classic game of the bulldozer is the tapping method. When feeding the equipment into the fishing zone, the load reaches the bottom. After the installation has fallen to the bottom, make two or three blows with the equipment on the ground, with a lift of no more than five centimeters. At such moments, the nozzle, in any case and with any structure of the bottom base, raises a cloud of turbidity, into which a weight is raised, about 5–7 cm, and 3–5 short throws of a couple of centimeters are carried out. During the toss, hooks with cambrics and beads strung on the shank, in addition to the visual effect of movement, also create a sound wave, which also helps attract fish. After the tosses, there is a pause of at least five seconds, at which time the bite most often occurs.
Important! During the pause, the angler's attention should be focused on the guard of the tackle, with any movement of which a hook should be made, raising the rod whip up.
In the absence of bites, the wiring is changed, experimenting - decreasing or increasing pauses, changing the levels of lifting the load from the bottom and making additional rocking of the body of the bait at the moment it hangs.
What fishing rod should I use for fishing?
Winter fishing rods with long whip
To catch perch in the winter on the boulder, fishing rods with long whips are used, allowing you to make clear strokes. Some fishermen fish without nods, however, its use is desirable, since the perch sometimes takes it quite delicately and there is a high probability of missing a bite.
Use a nipple or mylar nod, which has good shock absorption.
Perch fishing technique
The technique of fishing with a bulldozer is simple. Unwinding the fishing line, the fisherman finds the bottom with a weight. After this, the slack is removed so as to feel that the load is standing upright, but has not yet come off the bottom. This is followed by a short stroke of the brush and the bait sharply returns to its place, but again so that the load does not fall on its side. In order to control this moment, a nod is precisely what is needed. After a pause of 5–20 seconds, the next swing follows, and so on. The bite, as a rule, follows a pause, and often after several seconds. And the more passive the fish, the more pauses are made.
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How to make a balda
Having studied the principle of operation of the equipment, making or, as fishermen say, tying a balda with your own hands does not cause any particular difficulties even for a novice fisherman. The main difficulty in performing the work is the selection or production of the cargo required for the equipment. A weight of the required size and weight can be purchased in a store, or you can cast it yourself from lead or tin into a plaster mold, having previously provided for the installation of a fastening eyelet in the matrix immediately before casting the metal. An alternative to cast weights can be a bulldozer made of a steel, copper or brass rod, ground to the desired shape and equipped with a fastening loop.
As a rule, the loads do not need to be painted, leaving them in natural colors. In the case of painting, it is most practical to use dark colors - black, marsh green or brown, or, in extreme cases, matte silver. In addition to the weight, you will need to purchase single hooks of the required size with a fastening ring and preferably with a long shank, which are equipped with multi-colored chopped cambric and beads to give an attractive shape.
The equipment elements are threaded onto a fishing line with a thickness of 0.15 to 0.25 mm in the hook-weight-hook sequence, and a blind loop with a device for fastening the main fishing line is knitted 3-5 cm from the product elements. In some cases, in the place where the loop is knitted, you can install an additional miniature tee, which increases the fishing efficiency.
Painting the body of a fishing rod
When painting the lead body of each fishing rod, I usually cover it with thick dark nail polish in 2-3 layers.
After each painting, the body of the bulldozer bait dries for about an hour. I usually leave several baits unpainted.
Total: in total, it takes about 2-2.5 hours to completely make 8-10 baits called “fishing balda”, if the baits are painted with nail polish. But the bulldozer can be painted with another dye.
In the photo, the bodies of the fishing bully are painted in two layers with acrylic paints and then coated with a colorless acetone-based varnish.
Here, making the body of each bulldozer along with painting takes about half as much time. Next, we select baits for the hooks of the fishing rod.
How the bulldozer works: secrets and tricks
Photo by the author.
It is known that perch is perfectly caught using a variety of gear, both using bait and their non-bait counterpart.
The most striking representative of the latter class is the so-called “balda” - an easy-to-use bait that shows excellent results even in the dead of winter.
What does the bulldozer look like?
This simple name hides an artificial bait consisting of a painted lead body of a cylindrical or egg shape and two single hooks with a ring.
Such a bait is mounted on a loop of fishing line - the body is in the middle, and the hooks turn with their stings in both directions from it.
The finished bait is somewhat reminiscent of an amphipod beetle with its two legs, and therefore is perceived by the fish as a natural food item.
| Photo by the author. |
Color also plays an important role in catchability. Contrasting colors are considered catchy - black-red, red-white, black-yellow. Red or yellow cambric is put on the hooks, which also helps to increase catchability.
And if the bite is weak, the third hook, which is located 20-25 centimeters from the top loop on a short branch leash, can help out. It happens that the absolute majority of bites fall only on him.
The equipment is assembled on a compact fishing rod for winter trolling, with a long handle, on the reel of which a fishing line with a diameter of about 0.12 millimeters is wound. The whip is crowned with a plastic or metal nod - it will serve as a bite alarm.
How to fish with bullfish?
Fishing with a spinner is similar to classic lures. The fisherman drills 10-15 holes along promising places, typical perch sites. After this, he returns to the first one and begins fishing.
Retrieving consists of uniform jerks with a fishing rod, during which the rod bounces above the bottom and falls back, raising a cloud of turbidity. While the bait is on the bottom, the equipment must be tensioned - this is where the nod comes in handy, by which you can clearly monitor the bite of the perch during the pause.
Recently, some anglers have begun to switch from nods to the softest feeder quiver types made of fiberglass, mounting them in a fishing rod instead of a whip, thereby ensuring free passage of the fishing line through the rings and high sensitivity.
| Photo by the author. |
As with trolling, you should not linger on one hole for a long time: 25-30 strokes of the fishing rod, a pause between which is 3-5 seconds, is quite enough to understand whether there is a perch in the hole or not.
If fishing occurs at shallow depths, it makes sense to feed each of the holes with a pinch of bloodworms, feeding the larvae from above and giving them time to drown. Such natural bait is extremely positively perceived by fish and collects it from long distances.
After the holes are fished, the angler prepares the next series of holes, and then returns to the very first one. This time it is necessary to fish not ten, but twice as many holes.
It often happens that a particular point is silent during the first pass and begins to bite only after a long time.
The main trophies when fishing on the Bald are various types of perches, starting with medium-sized “sailor fish” and ending with trophies weighing a kilogram or more. This bait will not be missed by the bream and roach - they purposefully catch this fish in places with maximum depths.
And also during the thaw period, carp and crucian carps often grab the bulldozer - the capture of these fish is far from uncommon, and therefore you should be prepared to fight with strong fish.
Alexey Murashko January 10, 2021 at 11:05
