Pike before the freeze-up. Lures and their presentation technique
Andrey Shvets | December 12, 2021
...The water in rivers and lakes has already cooled, dead aquatic vegetation has sank to the bottom, coastal landscapes have become dull gray, and predatory fish have become less active. The process of digestion of food by the predator has slowed down extremely, so pike outings become rare and short-lived, and most importantly, unpredictable. But in the pre-winter period there is a high chance of catching a real trophy.
Although usually the activity of spotted fish before freeze-up is observed in the afternoon, there are no rules without exceptions - there are different bodies of water, and there is always some specificity in the behavior and preferences of local pike, and this largely depends on the size of the reservoir. Catching toothfish in this harsh season is quite difficult, and the area of water that we have to process puts forward its own requirements for fishing tactics, the necessary baits, and the technique for presenting them.
Let's start with the serving technique. In the last few years, twitching wobblers has come to the fore for most of our spinning players - and has literally eclipsed all other types of animation. Of course, the effectiveness of twitching is extremely high, and very often it outperforms the good old “uniform”, but... Over the years, the first puppy delight and thoughtless worship of twitching gradually fades away - and many people come to the understanding that there are no situations where twitching is ineffective.
It could just be a day when a predator, for some reason, does not react to jerking wobblers or, at most, hits them with a closed mouth. And it also happens that jerking wobblers becomes simply ineffective - for example, when you need to fish large areas of watering with approximately the same depth or extended edges.
The situation is aggravated if there is no anchorage in the water area, such as spots from water lily leaves or bunches of reeds, i.e. there is absolutely nothing for our eyes to grab onto - in front of us is just an endless sea of water. This situation is typical, for example, for large reservoirs or lakes, so there you need to select your own special fishing tactics. And twitching here will not be the best choice - not only does the wobbler, darting around, cover a very short distance during a series of “twitches”, but also frequent and more or less long pauses make the fishing speed simply frighteningly low - it takes about two or three or more minutes, and we are processing a very small area.
In addition, in large bodies of water the predator is dispersed throughout the entire water area - in some places it may not be present at all, but in other places it can form quite significant concentrations. And the more places you fish, the more casts you make, the higher the chances of our bait meeting a predator. And with a low fishing speed, we may simply not get to his camp site, simply by not reaching it. That is why it is necessary to look for the most optimal scheme for fishing a reservoir with a large area of the water surface under such conditions.
The solution here is quite simple - this is the so-called “area fishing”, when long casts in different directions are used to fish the water area around the boat. And in order to increase the fishing speed, only uniform wiring is used - both at an average pace and at a faster pace. Consequently, here we need baits that cast well, have an active “game” of their own and work stably, without failures, at different speeds “uniformly” - we will use them to try to find the predator’s sites. Throwing a well-flying bait 50 - 60 meters, especially downwind, is normal with this kind of fishing - after all, the further we deliver the bait through the air, the larger the area we will fish with it.
In areas you can fish both from an anchor and while drifting, rafting with the wind or current. At the same time, in a large body of water, while drifting, it is easier to detect clusters and single sites of a predator, but when biting, it is best to immediately lower the anchor into the water and carefully fish the triggered point, because There, with a high degree of probability, there may be not one individual, but several. And if, as an option, from an anchored boat, you can successfully use a long-range large minnow and twitch it at a fast pace and aggressively, then in the drift we only need baits for uniform retrieve.
The reason is simple: technically correct twitching from a constantly moving (often at an inconsistent speed) boat is simply impossible: the pulls performed will either be too strong or “miss the mark” when we do not have time to pick up the slack in the cord and the rod will fall as if into emptiness. But if you are fishing with a jerk retrieve while drifting, then the casts should not be very far, because twitching, even at a fast pace, still loses to “uniform” fishing in the speed of catching. And since our boat is carried more or less quickly by the wind, we simply do not have time to complete the wiring completely before we are already carried past the point at which the wobbler was thrown.
For example, good old “iron” can be used as bait for area fishing. As for the “oscillators”, they should be heavy and compact. And it is better to install “spinners” that are front-loaded, equipped with a weight-head with a large mass corresponding to the task of long-distance casting.
Rotating spoons with a metal core on the rod are not very suitable here, because... Even fairly heavy models float noticeably in flight, especially in windy weather, making casting difficult. The exception is, perhaps, Myran spinners, which can easily be cast to record distances for their class, and spinners with an in-line with a bullet-shaped core weight.
An even more budget-friendly option is any active “silicone” - a twister or a vibrating tail - on a fairly heavy head, or even better - on a swivel joint with an eared weight: such equipment flies very far and has little sail in flight.
If we take the wobblers that are most popular for area fishing, then, first of all, these are cranks or shads with different depths, as well as baits such as rattlins.
I am familiar with fishing of this kind on large bodies of water firsthand, so over many years of fishing I have developed a set of baits for working across areas. In late autumn and early winter, if it is mild and the reservoirs are not immediately covered by an ice shell, I give preference to large, heavy baits. Large, 17 to 23 cm long, “silicone” with a weight built into the body of the bait has proven itself very well as a search bait.
Since such bait usually weighs from 50 to 100 g, then you need appropriate gear - a long and powerful powerful rod with a medium-fast action and a multiplier reel. One of my favorite models is Savage Gear 3D Burbot , this is a realistic silicone “burbot” (there is even a mustache on the muzzle) 25 cm long and weighing 75 g, it can be used for both uniform and jigging wiring in a wide variety of options. When moving, the tail of the 3D Burbot actively plays, oscillating smoothly, and the pectoral fins of the “burbot” also move - hyper-realism sometimes plays a decisive role when hunting for a finicky inactive pike.
The tee of the bait hangs on a clasp, which is threaded into a groove in its body and its upper end comes out near the head. A long metal leash is attached to the clasp: when biting, the pike is caught by the tee and pulls the clasp out of the groove, while the bait itself slides up the leash - as a result, the life of the silicone body is extended. A small noise capsule is mounted in the tail part of the burbot, which produces a faint knocking sound when it moves, additionally attracting the predator.
The heaviest version of the 3D 4Play V2 Swim & Jerk Savage Gear ; The bait is bladeless - this allows you not to use heavy-duty tackle. When it comes to wiring, this swimbait is very unpretentious - you can twitch it and move it by pulling the rod - with any animation the bait plays very stably, without failures. When drift fishing, the so-called “reel technique” works well, when the pull is performed not with the rod, but with the reel handle with a slight acceleration at the end. With proper wiring, the three-piece wobbler draws a smooth “snake”, and during a pause it slowly sinks, slightly swaying its high, flat sides.
The bait is universal along the wiring horizon - if necessary, it can be placed both under the surface and near the bottom of a deep hole. In the first case, after splashing down the wobbler, we raise the tip of the rod up and begin to perform “twitches” or pulls with virtually no pauses - this way you can fish even a meter-deep layer of clean water. If you need to explore a deeper section of the reservoir, then after casting using the counting method, let the swimbait drop to the required depth - and begin retrieving. But since during continuous wiring our bladeless bait tends to rise along an inclined path to the surface, it is necessary to perform periodic pauses, during which the wobbler will descend to the initial wiring horizon.
The bladed swimbait 3D 4Play V2 Liplure, 20 cm long and weighing 62 g, also catches perfectly: the three-piece swimbait is designed to float up slowly, and with continuous retrieving it can be driven to the horizon up to two meters. It works great both on jerky retrieves and stop-and-go, you can also use uniform retrieves with acceleration and deceleration. The movements of the swimbait on the retrieve are serpentine - its segmented body bends at the joints - and the bait smoothly moves forward, flashing its flat lateral surfaces.
The good old oscillating spoons, which are very convenient for fishing from a drifting boat, also do not give up their positions, because... Basically, their use involves uniform wiring. I selected large and heavy models so that they play attractively not only on forward movement, i.e. on the “even”, but also on the fall. These are Nories Dairakka weighing 38 g and Williams Wihtefish weighing 42 g - this pair simply “falls” enchantingly on the fall and plays beautifully on a uniform retrieve at an average speed.
Two more heavy “scoops” are very good when fishing from a drifting boat - the Svartzonker Zaza Pike (50 g) and the new model Rapala X-Rap Scoop (68 g), both of which have a voluminous plastic body, and the Rapalovskaya is also equipped with a noise chamber with many small balls that produce a quiet rustling sound when moving the bait. What’s interesting is that all four of the above models are perfectly twitchable with a rod of appropriate power - I often use a pair of sharp “twitches” to create a kind of glitch in the wiring, while the “oscillators” scour the sides no worse than a real minnow wobbler.
Among my favorite lures for fishing from a boat drifting in the wind are large rattlins, I settled on just two models: the Geecrack Striga weighing 84 g and the Imakatsu Magnum Gillsonic in a sinking version that weighs 45 g. I have the “quiet” version of the Striga, and the Imakatsu Vib is available with several noise chambers, but as search baits, both rattlins work just fine on pike. The heavy Geecrack has a very powerful, sweeping, wide-amplitude “game,” and Gillsonic even has two “game” options. The bait is equipped with two loops for attaching fishing line: on each loop the vibration plays with a different amplitude and frequency, which is sometimes very convenient, because allows you to adapt to the mood of the pike.
To conclude the review of late-autumn fishing on large bodies of water, I will note one more nuance: when the wind is strong, drift fishing becomes very inconvenient, since the boat is carried at a very high speed. Then I put a floating anchor made of PVC - it slows down the boat to a barely noticeable speed, which makes fishing the water area very comfortable.
On smaller bodies of water or in cases where the water area available for fishing is limited for some reason, my fishing is completely different. In the cold season, you most often have to deal with an inactive pike, which is in prostration most of the time and is not predisposed to chase a quickly moving bait. And how to seduce a passive spotted one?
Being a devotee of wobbler fishing and seeing that my favorite “minnohs” do not always work effectively during long pauses, I thought a lot about which model could work like a “silicone” on a jig with its dragging along the bottom, which is ideal for unraveling a passive predator. For a long time nothing worthwhile came to mind, because... any wobbler is equipped with at least two tees - and it won’t take long to drag such a suicide bomber along the bottom. The idea was suggested to me by the Japanese with their new concept of lures, namely, with a loop for loading a wobbler located in the lower part of its head (the Japanese most often practice such a thing on large lures such as composite swimbaits).
And after watching one video, I realized the genius of such a design solution. The point is that a bait with a loading loop is initially released floating - and we have the opportunity to change the buoyancy of the bait at our discretion, focusing on the fishing conditions. Let’s say, if the depth at the fishing spot is up to two meters, we put in a stock floating version, which usually goes down to a meter, and moved to deeper parts of the reservoir – we can fish even near-bottom horizons, playing with the size of the weight and making our bait sink in a few seconds.
So my dream came true - with such a wobbler it became possible to fish in the bottom layer, fishing it at a snail’s pace, and even with pauses, during which you can, in addition, move the compound bait in one place. This is achieved in the following way: you need to make the distance between the suspended weight and the bait a little longer, so that during a pause the weight does not press the swimbait with its nose to the bottom, and it floats a short distance from the ground.
To do this, we either hang a weight from the loop using a long fastener, or use, again in conjunction with the fastener, a long weight for a drop shot: in both cases, thanks to the long hitch, the bait will stand at some distance from the bottom. Now we have room for imagination, and we can use the slowest variants of retrieves, even dragging, with various plays along with the tip of the rod while paused. Retrieving the bait this way takes a lot of time - you have to be patient, because otherwise you won’t be able to force an inactive pike to attack the wobbler.
For such purposes I use medium and large models Imakatsu and Jackall , which are easy to use and very catchy. The price tags for them, alas, are not very affordable, but in Japan the prices for all Big Baits start from 30 dollars and reach several hundred.
When loaded, the four-piece Jackall Gantia 180 swimbait, weighing 52 g, is very interesting: a two-gram weight is enough for its “chin” so that it sinks at an average speed and stands above the bottom, with its tail slightly raised up. For passive pike, inhibited fishing with short, light pulls or single smooth “twitches” with long pauses works great.
In a mini-stretch, the swimbait passes a dozen or two centimeters above the bottom, wriggling its multi-component body, and freezes again, while the tail, by inertia, continues to move slightly. The wiring turns out to be very long and boring, but it’s worth it - even with a general lack of biting, you can almost always earn 3 to 5 effective results from a toothy fish. Pike attacks the swimbait most often either during a pause or at the beginning of the movement, and all bites are usually angry, with a sharp blow.
A very interesting large bladeless crank, which we not entirely correctly call rattlin, is the Magnum Gillsonic Imakatsu in floating and slowly floating versions. We hang a weight weighing 2 - 3 g on a long hitch from the loop on the chin of the vibrator - and when paused our “bladeless” stands vertically above the bottom, like a float. The bait is equipped with two loops for attaching fishing line - on each of them the vibration plays with a different amplitude and frequency. If the wobbler is not loaded, then changing the fishing line attachment point also entails changing the depth of the bait: the upper loop is up to half a meter, the lower loop is up to a meter.
When loaded, it catches inactive pike well on a retrieve with markedly increased pauses: 20 - 30 centimeters of forward movement - and a pause, at the beginning of which the vibration moves slightly above the bottom. Sometimes you don’t even need the bait to start vibrating - you just need to drag it a little along the bottom, and a confident bite immediately follows.
I (and the pike) really like the new sinking bladeless joint (TBS) from DUO , which was released in the Realis - it’s called Onimasu 188 , and is available in floating and sinking versions. We are interested in the first one - weighing 78 grams, this swimbait is unusual in everyone - both because it has a high and thin flat body in the back, and because the tail part of the swimbait is made floating. Why is this done and what is the point of it? The floating tail gives us the following: Onimasu moves in the water column with a strong trim on the bow, and during the usual TBS wiring with smooth rhythmic pulls, the bait does not climb to the surface, like all sinking “bladeless” baits, but stubbornly holds its wiring horizon.
And when fishing from the bottom, it’s absolutely beautiful: the bait is simply ideal for very slow retrieving with long pauses, because It stands at the bottom only with its nose, with its tail raised up at an angle of approximately 45°. We do a stretch or two and pause, and the more passive the pike, the longer it can be. The hooks of a bait placed on the bottom in this way are raised above the ground, and are also protected by its body - and this results in significantly fewer hooks on bottom debris.
The flat body of a heavy swimbait strongly pushes the water - and the pike notices such a bait from a great distance: there have been cases when an inactive predator simply butted it with a closed mouth, seeing it not as prey, but as a competitor, and turned purple on the outside of its head. Naturally, with large, heavy swimbaits, which are very expensive, it is best to work in the bottom layer from a boat with a detacher of a reliable design, but from the shore you can fish only in those parts of the reservoir where the bottom has been thoroughly studied and there are no snags.
Of course, everything written above is not a direct guide to action - this is just my experience and my favorite baits. In general, pike fishing in late autumn is very interesting, and in the pre-winter period there is a high chance of catching a real trophy, which beautiful photographs will remind you of for many years...
Lures and baits
Wobblers are used for catching pike and perch. For pike, wobblers of 2 types are preferred: Crank and Shad. The first option is suitable for active fish (it is often used as a scout), and the second - for passive ones. Small wobblers, which sink better, are suitable for perch (it is difficult to catch them with large baits). Large baits are in demand for pike perch.
Thus, November is considered the best time to catch predators. The activation of predatory fish with the onset of cold weather, combined with the choice of a good place, makes it possible to catch a trophy and enjoy fishing.
Pike bite and weather
Weather is of fundamental importance for successful pike fishing. The most successful fishing occurs in cloudy, windy weather. In the sun, and not only in the heat, the chances drop sharply (in other types of reservoirs this pattern is not as pronounced as on small rivers).
In sunny weather, it is worth looking for a shady place under the trees growing on the shore. But it’s better to do something else, for example, catching roach, dace, ide and fishing for caddis or worms. A light drizzle of rain is very conducive to fishing.
Heavy rains, causing cloudiness and rising water, worsen the pike's bite. After them it is very difficult to catch a pike. It goes to places where the current is minimal and settles there until the water begins to subside. Then the pike begins to bite right next to the shore. At this time, it is useless to look for it closer to the middle of the river. After the rain, the current there is stormy, the river carries mud flows, and the predator goes under the bank. Therefore, you need to make casts exclusively parallel to the shore, without wasting time fishing in the middle of the river.
I didn’t notice a clear connection between the phases of the moon and the pike bite. It is possible that with a large amount of information such a pattern will appear. But, in any case, it may not be worth postponing fishing because the moon phase is unfavorable.
Features of pike in a small river
The behavior of pike in small rivers is influenced by various factors, which can be summarized according to the most general characteristics:
— geographical position of the river;
- time of the year;
— distance of the riverbed from populated areas;
— areas of flow (forest, steep banks, depths, etc.);
— coastal thickets;
— abundance of food supply for the predator;
— presence of artificial and natural underwater obstacles.
The methods of hunting pike in small rivers are the same as in large reservoirs. Most often, the predator attacks its prey from an ambush, for which many underwater obstacles are suitable.
Pike grows in small rivers to decent sizes. There are many known cases of catching a toothy fish weighing about 5 kg at a depth of no more than 0.5 m. The growth of pike is affected by the presence of a sufficient amount of food and low intensity of fishing.
It is impossible to deny the fact that the most accessible fish on small rivers are small squirrels, which during periods of their activity can become a worthy catch when fishing for crucian carp.
If a small river is a tributary of a larger river, then migration of the predator to large areas is possible. This happens when the ubiquitous fry is not active. Usually, the movement of pike is observed on the eve of freeze-up.
Float fishing for capricious roach before freeze-up.
Good afternoon, dear colleagues! I would like to bring to your attention a small, and I hope for you, informative article about catching roach in the fall with a float. I specifically chose a difficult body of water, namely a long lake with a sandy and muddy bottom, the banks of which are covered with reeds and there are areas with thickets of water lilies. The depths of the reservoir range from 2 to 5 meters, but according to old-timers, there are holes with a depth of up to 7 meters. For the fishing spot, I chose an area between the reeds and with a gradual decrease in depth to 5 meters. This area was not chosen by chance, because in summer and early spring I caught very good large roach there.
It was decided to fish with an 8-meter fly rod, the casting depth of which was 4 meters. The equipment was designed specifically for cautious fish, float 1.2 g, main line 0.11, leash 0.08 with a small hook 22 numbers. You may ask how to cast such a long rod with light rigs? It's simple! Some manufacturers of branded fly rods create a double tip, which allows the use of very light equipment. I used bloodworms and maggots as bait.
The groundbait was mixed from two bags of dusty fine-grained groundbait of a dark color with a faint smell of chocolate, with the addition of breadcrumbs at the rate of 500g per 3kg of dry mixture, for a slight “lifting” I added 200g of ground roasted sunflower seeds. In autumn, fish respond well to odors, but there is a fear that if there is too much aromatics, the fish will be scared off, so this point needs to be taken seriously. In cold water, carp fish prefer citrus aromas, anise, fennel, cloves, cinnamon and garlic. Sometimes summer flavors such as chocolate and cocoa also work in cold water. According to my observations, fennel is well suited for roach at this time, with which I successfully flavored the bait with the calculation of two ground teaspoons per 3 kg of dry mixture.
The starting fishing began with 6 balls, and in the process of fishing to reduce bites, I threw in 2 small balls. It must be admitted that on this day the roach behaved extremely capriciously, there were very few bites and therefore we had to experiment with both the fishing depth and the length of the leashes. She responded to complementary feeding only 20 minutes after feeding. I caught all the fish exclusively using bloodworms.
The result of my little fishing was 12 roach from 70 to 150g, this is the maximum that I was able to “squeeze” out of my fishing area. I do not rule out that the fish had to be looked for in another part of the reservoir because before the freeze-up the roach gathers in schools and begins to stay locally in their wintering areas. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to search for such a site, and I had to fish in the place that I had originally chosen.
Good luck to everyone on the ponds! With you was an athlete from the Fishingsib.ru team, Nikita Dupin.
In the comments, you can ask questions to the author of the article and share your experience of catching roach with a float in late autumn.
