The best baits and lures for catching saberfish - where, what and how to catch, popular methods (gear), video

Description and behavior characteristics

Chekhon belongs to the carp family. It has:

an elongated, laterally flattened body in the shape of a saber;
greenish back, similar to a herring;
lower fins with a reddish lateral line;
gray tail and fin.

The meat is very tasty, rich in healthy vitamins, microelements and proteins.
They prefer to dry and smoke fish. Meat is good for children due to its high hypoallergenicity. Knowing the places and methods of fishing, catching sabrefish is not at all difficult. In the spring, it is best to fish on rivers with a current, when they go to spawn and greedily rush to any bait. The average weight is 400-500 grams, but large individuals up to 900 grams and up to 70 cm in size are often encountered.

Equipment for fishing sabrefish

As a rule, sabrefish fishing occurs on rivers with moderate and strong currents. Therefore, we will need a rod with a length of 3.6 to 3.9 meters with a test weight of up to 120 grams. In general, an ordinary river fisherman who can easily deliver a 100-gram feeder 50 meters away.

We set the reel with a spool volume of 3000-4000. It should withstand feeders from 100 grams and above. We wind a fishing line with a thickness of 0.25 mm or a braid with a thickness of 0.12-0.14 mm onto the reel.

The most important element when fishing for saberfish is the leash, or rather its length. Since this fish stays in the water column, the length of the leash should be at least 1 meter. 1.5 and even 2-meter ones are often used. We use the equipment with a paternoster or with an anti-twist. The second important element is foam balls or dry dough. These attachments raise the hook above the bottom and the saber fish always sees foam and maggots in front of it. You can hang either one polystyrene foam on the hook, or add a couple of maggots or bloodworms to it. Chekhon takes better bait on maggots.

Habitats

Chekhon is a schooling fish and prefers to be found in schools in clean rivers, reservoirs and reservoirs near the Azov, Black, and Baltic seas.

Most often found:

on fast currents in deep reservoirs;
near reaches, slopes.

The location of capture directly depends on the time of year. Schools occur in the summer:

in deep-water areas and boundaries with the main, reverse current;
near sunken boulders and trees;
in places of whirlpools and trees inclined towards the water.

In winter , the fish goes to the bottom, preferring a slower current. To catch it, it is necessary to conduct a constant search of the bottom and change fishing spots more often. But you shouldn’t choose coastal areas for fishing. Most likely there are simply no fish there

Chekhon fish: description and photo

Chekhon is a fish with an elongated saber-shaped body. This is why fishermen call it “Sabre”. The back is greenish, the lateral line on the lower fins is red. The tail and fin are gray with a silver tint. The taste is excellent. Moderately greasy without any specific odors. This is a real storehouse of protein, nutrients and vitamins. Dried and smoked are especially good. The meat is hypoallergenic, so it can be given to children after removing all the bones. The average weight of one individual is 0.4-0.5 kg. Some specimens grow up to 0.7 meters, reaching a mass of 0.9 kg.

The most common habitats are bodies of water (rivers, reservoirs) in the basins of the Baltic, Azov and Black Seas. Prefers deep water with a strong current, found near reaches and slopes, and lives in flocks.

The strategy for catching saberfish depends on the season. In the summer, huddled in flocks, the saber stays in deep-water areas with active water exchange, near underwater boulders and sunken trees. Also lives in places where the branches of bushes or trees are inclined towards the water.

In winter it hides at the bottom, choosing areas with slow currents. For effective fishing, you need to fish the reservoir in several places and change the point often. In winter they fish only from the ice, drilling holes in the middle of the reservoir. There are simply no bites near the shore during this period.

Peculiarities of saberfish biting by season

As soon as early spring , you can go to the river for sabrefish. Around mid-May, the fish begin to spawn, flock into schools and greedily grab any bait they come across. Then, in mid-May, spawning begins and the biting stops for about 2 weeks.

This is not to say that the bite is stable in summer. However, activity is quite higher when there is a thunderstorm or rain. The fish is in constant motion and in order to keep it in one place, you need to feed it using slightly sinking baits.

It is good to catch sabrefish when the ice melts in the spring on the rivers, when increased feeding and racing for almost any bait begins. You can fish anywhere and in different ways.

Chekhon is unstable and does not stay in one place for long, quickly spreading throughout the entire reservoir.

Around the beginning of May, the bite stops completely for 2 weeks until spawning takes place. Spawning begins when the water warms up to 18°C and the fish is found in places where there is no dense vegetation or strong current. After 2-3 days, new larvae are born and after about 1 month you can catch full-fledged fry.

2-3 weeks after spawning, sabrefish begin to feed intensively again and go out to hunt for prey early in the morning and in the evening.

During the day, the fish are inactive, but they catch quite well with a donk and a float rod. After spawning, the fish usually gets sick for another 2 weeks, but then begins to feed again, preferring biological food.

There is a good bite in the fall , when preparations for wintering begin and the fish are trying to get enough of different foods; they begin to bite early in the morning and in the late afternoon. During the day you can catch it only in certain places using float tackle and elastic.

In late autumn, the fish hides in the middle layers of water, goes well with live bait when it begins to hunt for fry, which is what you need to fill the feeders with when fishing on the bottom. Fishing is successful until the first frost and the rivers cover with ice.

In winter there is practically no bite. It’s good if you’re lucky enough to catch it with a jig or bloodworm.

Conditions for a good bite of sabrefish

Lighting – a good bite of sabrefish should be expected primarily on gray cloudy days. But this fish feels good even in clear sunny weather;
Wind – the bite is activated when there is a slight wind. If the wind direction changes frequently during the day, fish activity decreases. Southern, western and eastern winds have a beneficial effect on the bite;
Pressure - a sharp jump in pressure leads to a decrease in the activity of saberfish to almost zero. Stable atmospheric pressure, especially low pressure, helps to improve the bite.

Where is the best place to catch saberfish?

Chekhon is a deep-water fish, but in the summer, in the heat of the morning, it is found at the surface of the water on rivers with fast currents. In the evening, when it gets dark, it quickly sinks to the bottom. Closer to May, it begins to spawn and come to the surface of rivers, moving against the current.

The fish actively reacts to any bait, but is cautious and rarely comes close to the shore. In the dark, you can find individual individuals of the same size. During the spawning period, it goes to deeper sections of rivers.

After spawning, sabrefish begin to migrate downstream, occupying their former summer camps. Better to catch:

near deep holes and rifts, flooded snags;
on hills or boundaries with fast and slow currents;
in deep sections of rivers with rapid currents;
in areas of large bays without dense vegetation;
in the middle and upper layers of water immediately after spawning;
at the bottom of sandy islands, slopes, channel edges;
at the boundaries of the main flow and return flow;
in places of protruding capes and creeks;
areas with significant depth and slow flow.

In summer, fish are not inclined to leave their homes and do not go far from the biting areas. It happens that in certain sections of rivers you come across single individuals. First, you should watch the fish bite in the selected section of the river. If the bites are high, then most likely the sabrefish will return to its original place after spawning.

How to properly catch saberfish on a spinning rod?

Good preparation combined with an understanding of the fish's instincts will result in quality fishing.

Catching a predator is done like this:

Choose the optimal place that the saberfish loves. It is often noticeable on the surface of the water.
Determine the presence of deep places.
Collect the gear and put on the first bait.
Throw the spinning rod into the water and wait until the nozzle is completely immersed in the water.
Make a wiring (the type depends on the chosen bait).
During the movement of the bait, the fish attacks and clings well to the hook.
After fishing for one individual, the rod is thrown into the same place again.

If the prey sees a person, it will move to a safe distance, so all movements and conversations are kept to a minimum and camouflage is used.

Methods of catching sabrefish

In fact, sabrefish can be caught by any means: with a float rod, bombard, elastic, feeder, donka, fly fishing.

Fishing with bombard (sbirulino)

When fishing with this method, it is important to consider the fishing location and select a sinking float. A bombard is a sinker strung on a fishing line with sinking baits. It is preferable to fish with a sinking bombard baited with fry, midges, and insects.

On a float rod

When fishing with a float rod, you need to adhere to the tactics of fishing with saberfish. It is better to fish in the morning, when the fish begin to hunt for fry and midges on the water.

If small splashes appear, then we can assume that the place was chosen well and there are fish nearby. Suitable for maggots and worms. In this place it is worth playing with the fish, either throwing the tackle or lifting it up.

It is better to take biological bait for long-term retention on the surface of the water.

For fishing, a standard float rig with a rod length of 8-10 mm and a fishing line up to 0.18 mm in diameter is quite suitable. When using float gear, it is best to send it to float on its own with the current.

On the rubber donk

An elastic band is an easy tackle to use. This is a regular donk with a rubber shock absorber. It is good to catch crucian carp and saberfish.

Includes:

reel wound around the tackle;
fishing line 50 m long;
leash up to 25 mm in diameter;
carabiner with elastic swivel up to 1000 mm in length;
sinker with 500-600 g of fishing line.

It is better to fish with an elastic band from a boat, and use fry, grasshoppers, maggots and worms as bait, periodically pulling the fishing line with hooks towards you to attract the attention of the fish at the moment of capture.

When fishing with an elastic band, it is better to keep the tackle in the upper layers and make up to 8 knots on the line as boundaries beyond which the floats should not go. You can use a non-slip float.

The technique of fishing with an elastic band is quite simple:

throwing the tackle with a sinker and elastic band into the water so that the hooks are located in the right place;
attaching the float and feeder to the tackle.

If the weather is cloudy, then it is better to lower the tackle closer to the bottom to 1.5 m. If it is clear, then leave it on the surface of the water, but check that there are no algae nearby, otherwise the activity of the fish will lead to snagging of the fishing line, and fishing will go down the drain.

To the feeder

When fishing with a feeder, it is important to consider:

weather;
current intensity in the selected area of the reservoir;
feeder weight not exceeding 60 grams;
speed of delivery of equipment to the right place.

Food should be supplied to the feeding area on time and without problems. When fishing on a sabrefish feeder, the tackle is somewhat different from the traditional one. The fish prefers to vibrate and go into the depths, so when catching it is necessary to increase the length of the leash to 2 m, and equip the fishing rod with foam balls to make catching easier. The length of the leash should be at least 18 mm, the feeder should be light in weight and slowly sink to the bottom when casting.

There is no need to compact the complementary foods in the feeders too much. In the water column it should be gradually and easily washed out.

For bait, fishermen most often use maggots, so you need to attach foam balls, stringing up to 6 pieces at equal distances. More often, porridge is placed in the feeders, but it should be crumbly.

Fly fishing

If you want to fly fish, you need to select a special cone-shaped rod. As bait - flies, streamers.

When fly fishing, you first need to get used to it and beginners cannot do it. Fly fishing for saberfish is rarely used because it is neither comfortable nor convenient.

Garland for saberfish

A garland is a fishing line with a sinker, to which five leashes with hooks are attached. The number of leashes may be greater. The main thing is that they do not get confused causing inconvenience. The garland is attached to a spinning rod, which allows for long casting. Feeder fishing with a garland requires taking into account a number of factors:

current intensity in a reservoir;
weather features;
weight of the feeder (up to 60 grams).

How to mount a garland - video:

Bait should be supplied to the fishing site regularly. To simplify fishing, use a 2-meter leash, and also equip the fishing rod with foam balls. The feeder should not be too heavy so that it sinks to the bottom gradually when casting. You should not compact the complementary food too much so that it is washed out in the water column easily and gradually. Crumbly porridge is used as bait, and maggots are used as bait.

The fishing technique is as follows. After a fishing spot has been chosen, the fishing point is fed by making 5 to 10 casts with a large-diameter feeder filled with bait. This allows you to feed the point faster. The next stage is casting gear with hooks and bait. Casting is not very convenient due to the long leashes, but you quickly get used to it.

Feeder tackle (garland) for catching saberfish - video:

The best baits and lures

You can catch saberfish with a variety of baits of animal and plant origin. The bait is varied: maggots, grasshoppers, flies, dragonflies, butterflies, worms, moths, caddis flies , also twisters and vibrotails when fishing in the fall.
In summer, saberfish attack insects, butterflies, beetles, and grasshoppers when fishing with a feeder bottom or a float rod. You can use stationary fishing rods and almost any bait, since the fish are not too picky.

It bites well on fry, flies, and grasshoppers. If you carry out step-by-step retrieving when casting and play with the tackle, fishing can become especially attractive.

Lures for catching sabrefish using a spinning rod

To catch sabrefish using a spinning rod, spinning anglers use a variety of baits. It can be:

wobblers;
vibrotails;
twisters;
edible rubber baits;
flies.

The sabrefish bite on the vibrotail is incomparable. Often bites are observed during the first cast. So the saberfish is to some extent a predator.

It is also worth noting that large sabrefish are caught much more often with a spinning rod than when fishing with a feeder or float. This is due to the fact that small sabrefish prefer other baits to fry and artificial fish. But large sabrefish like to chase fry, which is why it often happens in the catches of spinning anglers.

It is very good to catch saberfish on a spinning rod when using conventional stepped fishing. It is best to cast with the current so that the bait goes against it when retrieving and its action looks more attractive.

Chekhon in September

photo by the author

However, the Volga semi-anadromous sabrefish rises to the Oka. In some tributaries of the Mother Volga you can also find sites of the local residential form of this fish. This time we will talk about catching autumn saberfish using spinning and fly fishing.

A spinner hunting for sabrefish mainly proceeds from the fact that the diet of adult fish includes not only insects and their larvae, but also juvenile fish. Spinning tackle thereby eliminates the bite of substandard specimens. In addition, for example, I have friends who hate fishing stationary and for them spinning is always preferable to other gear. During fishing in the Lower Volga, cruising on a boat along the water area of the reservoir, we discover a school of sabrefish, usually by its violent behavior at the surface of the water and by the accumulation of seagulls, we anchor and begin exciting fishing.

IN SEARCH OF FISH

I had to catch Volga saberfish more often in the autumn, when already in September its bite noticeably intensifies. With the cooling of the upper layers of water, schools of large saberfish increasingly begin to pursue accumulations of fry that have grown over the summer. Moreover, the bite is not limited to daylight hours, but continues at dusk and at night.

When searching for a fattening school of sabrefish, you must first take into account the behavioral characteristics of this fish in the Volga itself and in its numerous channels. And these are two big differences. If on a deep river, the width of which is several kilometers, you cannot do without a boat and field binoculars (to detect sabrefish striking fry at the surface of the water), then in the second case, successful fishing with a spinning rod from the shore is possible.

My experience of hunting for saberfish on Kharabalyk, Mitinka, Buzan and other Volga channels indicates that the easiest way to look for it is by focusing on characteristic splashes, as if someone is hitting the water with their palm. This can happen in two cases: when the fish picks up insects from the surface (and there are plenty of them here in September) or chases the fry.

Natural baits can be used as bait when hunting for saberfish with a spinning rod. Such, for example, as a whitebait, a piece of fish, an earthworm, 2-3 maggots. Sometimes I used natural baits for Volga saberfish on separate short leashes in addition to the spoon.

SPINNERS AND TANDEMS

When it comes to artificial baits, when long casts are required, I mainly use fairly heavy spinners and spoons, including silver castmasters. For the most part, a heavy bait serves the role of delivering a lighter bait on a separate leader. Otherwise, you won’t be able to cast a light bait far - you have to place a sinker weighing 15-20 g above it.

Where large sabrefish have not yet disappeared, excellent results are obtained by using the classic asp tandem “spinner + wabik or streamer” in the rig. Buying good mini-streamers in the store today is not a problem, but it’s better to make wabiki yourself. Moreover, it is not at all difficult. As raw materials for them, I use pigeon and chicken feathers, wool, viscose silk, Lurex and other materials that fly fishermen usually use to make flies. Of course, the size of the bait should be significantly smaller than when fishing for asp. For example, I use mini-oscillators weighing no more than 5 g for mounting various tandems.

At the beginning of autumn, saberfish react particularly keenly to fly baits, as well as twisters and other soft “products”. Any small spinner can become a fly spinner if you can correctly design the plumage of its tee (see photo). I usually equip such spinners myself. When placing a spinner in the upper layers of water, periodic jerks of the bait along the direction of its movement and very short stops when it moves a dozen or two centimeters lower give a good effect.

The light weight of small rotating spoons and fly spinners from 1.5 to 4.5 g requires appropriate other elements of gear. Typically, such baits are used with a light-class spinning rod, or better yet an Ultra light type. The fishing line, depending on the size of the sabrefish, in this case is required with a breaking load of 1.5-2 kg. True, there is one “but” here. In places where sabrefish are grouped, asp snatches are quite possible. Therefore, you often have to make a compromise when choosing gear, in terms of increasing its strength.

Where there is still a lot of sabrefish, and this is usually the lower reaches of such large rivers as the Volga, Don, Dnieper, spinning fishing with equipment similar to a sea tyrant gives very good results. A bet with 3–4 leashes with hooks No. 11–13 has a sinker at the end (preferably flat, with wings) or a spinner and is attached to the main line using a swivel. Short leashes are located 20-30cm apart. Hooks are equipped with feathers or hairs. Color white, black, red, gray. The saber fish probably mistakes the camouflaged hooks for a school of fry or insects and readily grabs them. It is possible to catch several fish in one trip. The wiring is horizontal and uniform. But sometimes the bite is more greedy for the intermittent movement of baits.

WITH FLOAT SBIRULINO

At the same time, the saberfish does not always take the top. It happens that you have just caught it, leading the bait near the surface of the water, and suddenly the bite stops. This means that the wiring should be made deeper. Let's say a meter from the surface of the water. In this case, the sbirulino float helps me out. Some fishermen also call it bombarda. But it's not the same thing. Sbirulino is a teardrop-shaped sliding float, available in three varieties: floating, slowly sinking and quickly sinking. Its weight is usually from 5 to 60 g. For catching sabrefish, I use floating as well as slowly sinking models weighing 10-12 g.

Sbirulino is used mainly for delivering light baits over long distances. Chekhon, for example, takes well not only on small spinners, but also on flies, streamers and mini-twisters approximately 3 cm long. It is, of course, unrealistic to deliver such bait to a distance of 30-40 m, but with the help of sbirulino you can easily decide this problem. We can say that in this situation, spinning even has advantages over fly fishing gear when you have to fish from an overgrown bank. A fly fisherman necessarily needs free space to make a quality cast, while a spinning angler equipped with a sbirulino float can fish in cramped conditions.

The sbirulino equipment is not complicated. I use it in two ways.

1. The float, with its thin part facing up, is put on the main fishing line, after which a leash (70-80 cm) is attached to it using a micro-swivel and a winding ring or clasp.

2. The float is also attached to the end of the fishing line, and above it are 2-3 leashes 10-12 cm long. The leashes are spaced at such a distance from each other that they cannot become tangled.

You, of course, will not be able to see the transparent floating float during wiring, and this is not necessary. The bite of the sabrefish is well transmitted to the hand, albeit as a weak blow. At one time, I, like many hunters for high-water fish, used spherical water-filling floats. Their main drawback is the clearly visible “whiskers” that spread out to the sides during wiring. The fish, of course, cannot but be alarmed by this. Sbirulino solves this problem too.

A quickly sinking float is indispensable when sabrefish feed in the bottom layers of water. As for fishing at different horizons, it is more appropriate to use a slow-sinking one. To find out at what speed and to what depth the rig with bait sinks, I recommend that you first, say, near the shore, where the depth is 1 m, conduct a simple experiment: after casting, the Sbirulino float sank to the bottom when counting to ten, which means this a reference point and should be used when determining the horizon on which sabrefish bites are currently occurring.

FLYS FOR SUBSCRIBER

As a child, I caught horsefish (grayling, dace) with primitive fly fishing “with a whistle”, using a solid rod approximately 4 m long and one and a half times longer than its fishing line, believing that this was a purely Siberian “invention”. But as it turned out, fishermen in some Russian southern provinces successfully caught sabrefish this way back in the century before last.

Nowadays, of course, there is no need to use such gear. Even if you are a person with average income, you can afford to purchase at reasonable prices everything you need to assemble and set up your fly fishing gear.

To begin with, you will need a universal 6-7 class rod that can be used for all types of fly fishing. The length of such rods is usually 2.1-2.6 m. A reel and line of the same class are selected in accordance with the fishing rod: for sabrefish, a floating one (torpedo-shaped or double-cone) is better. When choosing a fly line, you will undoubtedly pay attention to the technical designations on its packaging, which are deciphered, say, like this: Fly Line (fly line), DT 7 (double tapered, class 7), F (floating), 30 Yards (1 yard = 91.44 cm), i.e. The length of the cord is approximately 27 m. The diameter of the leash is selected depending on the conditions, usually 0.15–0.20 mm.

At first, you can limit yourself to just two types of flies: dry and wet. When fishing for river saberfish, they focus on the place where they are supposed to stop and try to place the fly 1–1.5 m upstream when casting. At the same time, we should not forget that the bite often occurs somewhat lower than the visually noticed splashes of the fish.

Often, fishing is complicated by the fact that you have to deal with the nature of the current, the formation of different strengths of currents and their directions, especially in the waterways, which complicates the natural presentation of the fly. In such situations, experienced fishermen usually use a special technique, the so-called mending - throwing the line with a semicircular movement of the rod tip.

If sabrefish cannot be reached from the shore or by wading, it is better to fish from a boat. Usually two people do this: one sits on the oars, and the other catches. In calm sections of the river, you can drift and cast as the boat moves downstream.

Chekhon is an active and lively fish. All active methods of catching it are original in their own way, very interesting and sporty. This fish always brings many joyful moments to the angler. As for its gastronomic qualities, dried sichel is an excellent delicacy.

Vladimir Kazantsev September 13, 2011 at 16:40