Fishing for bream in winter on the river and reservoir

Where to catch bream in winter

In ice-covered reservoirs for bream, the amount of oxygen decreases and the area of food pastures decreases. Large fish are left to look for places suitable for long-term stays. Usually these are deep-water holes in reservoirs, lakes, and large rivers. In small rivers, bream hides in the depths of steep banks.

Bream habitats in winter differ:

weak current;
water temperature is about four degrees Celsius;
absence of rotting algae;
best oxygen balance.

As soon as food runs out in long-term habitats, the fish have to move to areas rich in food. In these cases, he overcomes the force of the current by moving against it.

Fishing for bream on a river with current in winter

It is difficult to find a place on the river in winter where bream live. Schools of fish are more often found:

on the edge of the river bed,
underwater heights,
tables,
horizontal ledges of the side surface of the pits,
gentle slopes downstream.

In the depressions and hollows of the bottom, a lot of food necessary for fish in winter is retained. Sometimes in winter, schools of bream enter the vast bays formed next to the river bed. It is important that there are no rotting remains of vegetation or a large amount of silt in it, then this place will be an excellent pasture for schools of bream.

Traveling from the depths to shallow waters for food, the fish have to overcome the current. And here the weakened bream is helped by his comrades moving behind him. For rest, they choose places where the current is weaker. These can be sunken trees, boats, huge boulders, sand ridges. If you successfully find a hungry fish on the bream trails, then by tempting it with bait or bloodworms, you can return home with a rich catch.

Fishing for bream in winter on a reservoir

Promising areas for catching bream in winter on the reservoir include those where the depth reaches from two to four meters. You can find fish in deep ditches at the entrance and exit of a standing reservoir.

It is important that there is less noise from fishermen sitting nearby. It is better to step aside from the ice fishing enthusiasts who have gathered on the ice. The boundaries of the pit are examined by drilling several holes and determining the depth of the bottom. Will improve the catch at the reservoir:

properly selected bait;
smooth game with bream;
application of fertilizing;
the maximum diameter of the hole is at least one and a half meters.

Luck favors those who experiment with feedings, changing them, and know how to understand the course of the fish after bites.

Catching bream in winter at night in a tent

Everyone knows that bream comes out to feed at night, starting at two o’clock. Until five o'clock in the morning you can feel the activity of the fish. To achieve good results when fishing for bream in winter at night in a tent, you should adhere to the following rules:

Choose a place to set up a tent in the evening, before it gets dark. Having placed it on flat ice, they drill several holes. The hole in the ice should be large enough for the wide body of the bream to pass through.
The gear is prepared in advance. It is better if there are many fishing rods, which will increase the chances of catching a large specimen. It is necessary to install a stopper on the fishing rods, allowing you to give slack to the line when the prey begins to pull the line to depth. Hooks for bream are selected long with a shank. Size from 12 to 16 depending on bait.
They attract the attention of bream with flavored mixtures, which can take up to four kilograms per night. The first part of the bait is poured into the holes before dark.
If prey is not given, they switch to feeding with bloodworms. After mixing them with bait, the balls are sent into the hole.
Luminous colored jig tackle helps with your catch. They carry it out slowly, lowering it almost until the day.
From the weather conditions for fishing bream, choose a thaw.

Setting up a tent

Having found a promising place, you need to drill 3-4 holes (no more, since in a limited space it will be inconvenient to catch more) and set up a tent around them. It should be positioned with its back facing the wind to give it additional stability.

The tent usually does not have a bottom, but has a skirt at the bottom. It must be sprinkled with snow and then trampled down to ensure good thermal insulation.

To make catching bream at night in a tent more comfortable in winter, the temporary “dwelling” must be heated. For this we use:

gas, kerosene or gasoline tourist stoves;
dry fuel stoves;
several paraffin candles placed in glass jars.

It is important to take care of ventilation and ensure a flow of fresh air, because... An open fire quickly consumes oxygen.

Don't forget about tent lighting. It is better to hang the lantern at the top and in the middle. Fishing accessories - lures, bait, hooks, etc. – must be placed next to the holes.

What do bream bite on in winter?

Of the baits, white fish prefer those that are rich in protein. Therefore, the main bait when fishing for bream is considered to be bloodworms, a mosquito larva that lives in the bottom mud of reservoirs.

This is interesting: From the ice for large bream

In addition to its high energy value, the larva tolerates low temperatures well, maintaining viability. The maggot is inferior to the bloodworm in terms of external invisibility. You can combine both baits into a sandwich. Bream also likes to eat red worms, crawlers, and burdock moth larvae.

The main requirement for bait is its freshness.

Winter bream rigs

Bream are caught in winter using float and nodding tackle.

Float tackle for bream in winter

The fishing rod for catching bream in winter is as follows:

short rod;
reels with wound monofilament line;
main line with a cross section from 0.1 millimeter to 0.16;
float with a short keel and antenna;
small jig or hook.

Several fishing rods are equipped at a time to adapt them to fishing conditions. A luminous antenna is attached to the float so that it is visible in the dark. The float tackle should be overloaded so that only the antenna is visible above the water.

Fishing with nod tackle

Bream fishing is active in winter with nodding tackle. It is based on a nod, signaling a bite by bending or straightening. It is made from coarse material when caught in the current, sensitive - in calm water.

What to use to catch bream at night in winter

Bream is caught at night in winter using float rods with a hook, and less often with jigs. The latter are rarely used at this time of day, because in the dark the fish primarily uses their sense of smell and does not notice the play of the bait, although they feel its vibration. Therefore, when choosing this gear, it is recommended to buy jigs coated with fluorescent paint.

Bream is a large and powerful fish, so a float rod for catching it must meet the following requirements:

a rigid fishing rod that can withstand a strong jerk;
hook - No. 16 or No. 18, no more, so that 5-10 bloodworms can be placed on it;
sinker – light, from 0.25 to 0.5 g;
the smallest float.

It is impossible to lower such delicate equipment on a thick fishing line, so monofilament with a thickness of 0.12-0.14 mm is used. In this case, fishing will be longer, and you will have to pull the fish carefully, without sudden movements. If the bream shows serious resistance, the cord needs to be released a little, and then gradually pulled out again, centimeter by centimeter.

Fishing usually occurs from the bottom (except for thaws, when fish can rise to medium depths). Fishermen often equip fishing rods in different ways: some have jigs, others have hooks with bait. This makes fishing more varied and allows you to quickly understand what exactly is best for catching bream.

Bottom fishing rods are also used for night ice fishing. A sinker is tied to the main line (the stronger the current, the heavier it should be) and one or two leashes with hooks are added. The exact quantity is chosen by the fisherman himself. Some people use only one, because, in their opinion, the second one interferes with catching fish and catches neighboring gear. Others use a couple of leaders to fish several levels at once and have the opportunity to experiment with baits.

No bream bait in winter

In winter there is little food, so no matter how much you feed him, he is always ready to eat.

This is interesting: The best winter bait for bream

What to feed bream during the current

Cone-shaped feeders will help deliver bait to the bottom of the river. They are moistened with water from the hole, and mixtures purchased in the store or prepared independently are placed there. To attract fish, add small bloodworms or maggots, weighing the mixture with sand or fine gravel. The feeder is lowered into a hole drilled a meter or two from the main one. If there is one bloodworm in the feeder, then keep it closed at the bottom. The homemade mixture is made from breadcrumbs and semolina. To add flavor to the food, cake is added.

It is better to feed in several places on the river, arranging two or three fishing rods.

Bait for bream for the reservoir

Semolina is used as bait for bream in the reservoir. The grain smoothly sinks to the bottom in white turbidity. It is enough to drop a handful of cereal moistened with water into each hole.

It is recommended to add cake and a little dry milk to the semolina. In a confined space, the food will not be washed off, and the fish will follow its smell. You can also prepare briquettes of frozen bloodworms. Lowered to the bottom, it attracts fish to itself. The bream will stay in the feeding area for a long time, tearing off tidbits from the briquette.

It is necessary to use for bait those products that will not rot and will retain freshness and attractiveness.

Tips for catching bream in winter

Experienced fishermen advise following a number of rules when fishing for bream in winter:

You need to catch fish slowly, without forcing events. This is especially true for large specimens.
The bream tries to rush, to escape at the last moment, when the head is already in the light. You shouldn’t miss this moment; you need to loosen and release the fishing line in time.
For deep fishing you need heavy jigs, then the bait will be closer to the bottom and the line will be stretched well.
When fishing outdoors, small pieces of ice form in the hole, which must be constantly removed.
In the current, it is better to catch gear consisting of a sinker and two leashes with attachments located just above. At the same time, the fishing rod is constantly smoothly moved, lifting, moving to the side. The vibrations of the bait should be soft and stable.
The best baits for bream are oblong jigs of one or two colors. Large fish take bloodworms well from a hook soldered into a spoon in the shape of a fry.
A small hook is used to pull out fish.

In order for winter fishing to be successful, with a good catch, you need to have the ability to maintain restraint and composure.

Fishing for bream on a winter night

On many large lakes and reservoirs, bream is caught all winter, which pleases anglers. But this bite is most active in most reservoirs - at night. Therefore, fishing for bream at night is popular in many places.

Next, let's look at the usual question - how to catch bream in winter? Where can you find schools of fish under the ice? But we will talk about night winter fishing, which is usually more productive than fishing during the day.

Where to catch bream in winter

Bream switches to a winter lifestyle long before freeze-up, grouping in large schools at a decent depth. More often it collects on the primary bed of the reservoir and associated spring pits. Usually the fish concentrate in the middle part of the reservoir. But often great depths are observed near the banks at the bends of the channel and near the dam. Such places also need to be taken into account.

An echo sounder will help you find a large concentration of bream. Watching the device while moving on a boat, you can see that the clean bottom suddenly gives way to a huge school of white fish where the steep slope begins - the depth is from 6 to 12 meters.

Slopes and slopes to wintering pits, the mouths of streams with cliffs to the main channel must be remembered. Here the fish will stay all winter, including bream. Of course, you need to write down these coordinates in the navigator in advance in the fall, then the places for the holes for winter fishing are half ready.

However, you can be guided in your search for bream not so much by the terrain and previously known promising places, but by the accumulation of tents and tentless boaters on the ice, waiting for a bream bite. This community is always more or less precisely located above the bream sites and always, at least with some delay, crawls across the ice to the coolest areas of the reservoir after the fish.

When is bream usually caught?

The usual mode of fishing in a busy area of the reservoir is as follows. During the day, roach, silver bream, and bream are caught. At the same time, the bite is excellent, and the fishing is exciting, although dragging a fish from a depth of 8 meters is a bit difficult. But after sunset, the bite of small fish stops. Large bream come out to feed, and all anglers are preparing to catch it throughout the long winter night.

Most often during the night there are 2 - 3 short-term releases of bream with an interval of 3 hours - usually before midnight, then at 3 o'clock in the morning and closer to 6 o'clock.

This behavior of bream on a reservoir in winter can be called classic. But on busy days, which, although infrequent, do happen, the bream bites all night.

How to choose a place to catch bream

Where exactly should you set up your tent to catch bream at night in winter? All fishermen are busy looking for an answer... But only an individual search for the place where the fish is most active will help answer the question.

To do this, you need to arrive at the bream fishing site in winter in advance, preferably before lunch. Next, a dozen holes are drilled, at a great distance from each other along the edge or in the area of a promising location. They all need to be fed with a mixture for finding bream (description below), but it makes no sense to spend a lot of bloodworms - it will immediately be destroyed by the day's linen. When all the exploration holes have been drilled and baited, fishing begins. At the same time, you should not try to catch as many small things as possible, you need to analyze the behavior of the fish and choose the most promising point for night winter fishing for bream.

The brushes, perches, and roaches that come across during fishing are all the wrong fish. But the caught bream says that the chosen path is correct. In order not to lose promising holes, they need to be marked or sketched on paper. The best holes are re-fed in the late afternoon, but all holes are still checked. It’s not uncommon for those holes that were completely silent during the day to start working.

When sunset comes, it becomes clear where you need to put up a tent - where there is most undergrowth in the evening. But you shouldn’t forget the neighboring holes either. It also happens that the night is spent more outside the tent, on reserve holes, since the bream never pays attention to the fisherman’s thoughtful conclusions...

Fishing accessories for winter bream fishing

The tent is set up in the last rays of the winter sun... and at this time the frost is getting stronger. Therefore, it is advisable to choose a special winter tent for ice fishing. Firstly, it is tall, allowing you to stand up to your full height, which is extremely important for long-term fishing, because you need to stand and relax without going outside. And secondly, it is made of insulation - foamed polyethylene. The same insulation (6 - 7 mm thick) must be used to cover the ice, as long as the holes remain open. Then the ice will melt less and the cracks along the edges of the tent will close more securely and it will be much warmer inside. Gas heating is highly desirable. Nowadays there are flameless gas stoves on sale, in which gas is burned on a catalyst. They can also be used indoors. A power of 2 kW will be quite sufficient to fish all night in a winter tent without outer clothing.

You will also need a comfortable folding chair, since sitting on a fishing box for so long is tiring.

The next mandatory equipment for winter fishing is an LED flashlight with a large reflector and a large beam dispersion angle and with power adjustment. If you hang it from the ceiling, you will get a chandelier, and the tent will be quite light, but not bright.

Of course, in addition to these basic fishing accessories for catching bream in winter, you will need “a thousand little things”, such as headlamps - main and spare...

Composition of bait for bream in winter

The bream in the pond will have to be fed, and you also need to look for places where it stays with the help of feeding.

To examine the holes, you need a mixture that is very poor in bloodworms, which is added only for the smell - no more than 20 grams per feeder.

The rest of the bait composition for catching bream in winter is as follows:

The usual mixture for catching white fish in winter is 500 grams;
Ground roasted seeds – 200 grams (1 cup);
Steamed millet – 200 grams.

At night, when the small fish “goes to bed,” the amount of bloodworms should be very significant, since only this red worm can keep the active bream. The proportions of bloodworms and vegetable components in the primary feeding can reach up to 1/1 - you need to put in as much as you don’t mind. But it is better to serve bloodworms at the bottom under a layer of plant food. The bream will easily get it from there, but for other small fish it will be difficult to pick out the bloodworms from under the crackers and the larvae will remain until the bream arrives. In order for the bloodworm to be closed, it is enough to place it in a tilting feeder on top of other food.

Supplemental feeding of bream at night is not done, since lowering the feeder will simply scare away the fish until the end of fishing. Feeding is done in the evening, in the usual volume - 3 - 4 feeders per hole.

The process of catching bream at night

All that can be said about the equipment is that it should be quite reliable and quickly deliver the bait - a bunch of bloodworms - to the bottom. A 0.12 mm fishing line and a fairly weighty jig are used. You can fish with both a float and a nod.

Some bream fishermen use a kind of bite alarm. An elastic band is placed between the horns. A plastic stick is inserted between the rubber bands and the rubber is twisted 5–8 turns. Now, if you let go of the stick, the rubber will spin it back. But the force of the rubber is compensated by the tension of the fishing line with the jig. As you know, bream bite on the rise; when you lift the jig from the bottom, the rubber stick will be thrown back and, moreover, it will loudly hit the flyer. With this device, you can not only clearly see the bite, but also hear it well. In addition, it is clear at first glance which fishing rod the bite was on, if you slept through it...

Sound masking is maintained in the tent. Stomping, talking (quiet talking is fine), and falling objects are not allowed. Otherwise, you need to move the tent to a new place.

If there is no bite, you should not doze off, but go out into the fresh air and check the neighboring holes. It brings success. You need to spend 5 minutes on each of them and make several lifts with a jig. If there are no bites, then you shouldn’t hatch them. It also happens that only the outer holes work, so the night is spent on the legs.

If the holes close to the tent are also promising, then they need to be fed at night. When the bite in the tent stops, or the hooked fish scares the school, you need to quickly start fishing the neighboring holes while the bream is still out for feeding.

The bream usually announces its arrival by touching the fishing lines - the nods begin to twitch, and the floats begin to swim back and forth. But that doesn't mean anything yet. But if a float slowly unloads from the water and falls belly up, you need to hook it!

The bream resists to the last, walks in wide circles, therefore, most likely, it will collect all the dropped gear (it is possible that it will be possible to select them during fishing). This is also why the holes in the tent are located further away from each other.

You should not try to take bream with your hand in a bow. You definitely need to stock up on a long hook - a common companion for breams on winter fishing.

In general, you won’t be bored during the bite and a “fairytale night” of winter bream fishing is guaranteed. And if there was no bite, then you will definitely be left with a wealth of experience, a good mood, and hope for future successful fishing trips...