Fishing in October or trophy season in the fisherman’s calendar

Time for the leucorrhoea and the predator

Catching white fish, from about the third decade, fades into the background, especially as the water gets colder. But from the beginning of the month, as soon as the leaves begin to turn yellow, fishing continues successfully. The fish gather in schools and migrate to deep places, selecting holes suitable for wintering. Water and air temperatures drop, plants sink to the bottom, and water visibility and clarity improves.

River in October

From this moment on, the long-awaited meal of fish begins. However, not in all species and not at the same time. So, at the beginning of October, the feeding of asp and chub is already over. Ide, bream, crucian carp and carp are also gradually moving away by the middle of the month. This is especially noticeable with the onset of a sharp cold snap.

If the September Indian summer affects part of October, then the bite of most types of leucorrhoea persists until the warm weather changes. The evening and morning bite lengthens in time and shifts more and more towards the daytime bite. The small fish hatch periodically on quiet, calm days.

In dry, cold weather you need to look for peaceful fish at the bottom, at depth. On warm days, she comes out to the shallows to feed. It is on such days that the predator’s increased gluttony is observed.

Moreover, the feeding of pike, pike perch, and perch continues throughout the month, and with colder weather it intensifies even more.

This is explained simply: on stormy and cold October days, white fish are concentrated in holes at depth, and predators, on the eve of a hungry winter, continue to feed and, in search of prey, scurry around the reservoir, grabbing the first fish or bait that hesitates.

Where is the best place to fish with a float rod at the end of October?

If in the summer months float tackle can be used everywhere, then closer to winter at the end of October you should approach the choice of fishing spot especially carefully. This is facilitated by the fact that the fish, gathering in large schools, go to the depths to their wintering grounds, and sometimes it is not possible to throw float gear there. In view of this, when choosing a fishing location, you should focus on promising places where fish accumulate in the month of October. Such places are dams and dams at and near spillways. These waters are rich in oxygen and carry many food particles that attract fish and help concentrate them. You should also pay attention to coastal holes and pools, where fish also like to gather in anticipation of insects and their larvae that have fallen from coastal trees. If you have a boat, then you should pay attention to the remaining islands of aquatic vegetation, in which the fish feeds and hides from predators.

Gear selection

October is good for its versatility. For many lovers of this or that gear, mid-autumn provides an opportunity to unwind, do some good fishing and catch selected and varied fish. For convenience, a selection of effective gear in October for the most common types of fish in our reservoirs is presented in the table below “ Efficiency of gear in October ”

Perhaps the information will be useful to someone. So, let's begin,

Pike activity in October

Actually, in October, the water in lakes and rivers becomes almost transparent, i.e., various kinds of algae and other microorganisms, which also use oxygen dissolved in water, stop or reduce their activity until warmer times, therefore, in addition to the fact that the temperature The water level is already quite low (which is good for pike), and the water is also saturated with oxygen. Of course, in such conditions, the pike feels like a master, attacking in a fit of instinct almost everything that can be food and interest for it. She does not stand in one place, as in summer, but actively explores the reservoir, chases prey, but unlike the warm season, she already prefers deeper areas .

Float tackle

Successful fishing in October is determined by the correct choice of fishing location. And its search must be done from the standpoint of detecting fish migration paths into the pits. In October, the whitebait continues to feed, and if you can find parking and feeding areas for the school, you can catch quite a lot of fish.

The fishing rod is equipped with the usual equipment, fishing from the bottom, sometimes in mid-water. Animal baits, mainly bloodworms, worms, maggots, small baitfish.

Roach

The rod is 4-5 m long. The equipment must be sensitive. Line up to 0.14, leash - 0.12, float from 0.5 to 1.5 grams, hook size 14-18.

The roach hid

Fishing place:

• the reach right after the rift,
• the boundary of the direct jet and the suvodi,
• a grass edge with a sharp drop to depth.

Wiring at half-water. Bait is not necessary, but “proper fishing gurus” can use regular bream/crucian carp/roach. As we wrote above, it is much more important to find the right place.

Chub

At the beginning of the month, to catch chubs, the hook is baited with caddis flies and maggots, but as the weather gets colder, the bait changes. Small ones come to the fore, namely small baitfish - minnows. In some reservoirs, a small frog is used instead of a minnow.

Fishing location: deep places in front of and behind the riffles, under fallen trees, under bushes hanging over the water, behind the mouth of flowing rivulets, streams downstream.

They catch a chub using a line, and surround the float so that the bait floats 10-15 cm from the bottom. Skilled fishermen set up the gear to drag the minnow along the bottom. But beginners will most likely lose bait and catch the ground.

Rod from 4 m, fishing line 0.18-0.2 mm, leash 0.16-0.18, not bright float 3-6 grams. It should be noted that perch, pike perch and even pike can bite on live bait. Therefore, it is better to use a spinning rod with a reel as a fishing rod, and a 0.2-0.22 fishing line with a leash.

What is a float rod?

First of all, any fishing rod begins with a fishing rod; when choosing a fishing rod, each fisherman needs to be guided by where and what kind of fish he will be fishing for. For large bodies of water, you should choose a rod with a length of six meters or more; it will provide a good casting range; when fishing in canals, narrow channels, thickets of reeds or reeds, you should choose a shorter version of the rod of four or five meters (less chance of getting caught and losing the fishing rod’s equipment). Also, when choosing a fishing rod, you should pay attention to the physical capabilities of the fisherman. For men, a long, heavy version is suitable. At the same time, it will be easier for children and women to control a light, short rod. The presence of a reel is not necessary when fishing with float tackle; it is only necessary for winding up the fishing line during transportation.

Read: Bream. The behavior of the float during a bite

Donka, feeder

Bream

Trophy October is no exception for bream. The autumn feeder is not much different from the summer feeder in setting up the gear. The fishing places are the same - river beds, bays, old men, but with a bias towards deep-sea fishing - in holes, exits from them, on dumps.

Groundbait with the addition of bloodworms, worms, maggots, broken shells, bait - animals, the same ones that we add to the groundbait.

If you don’t get a school of bream in the hole, you can catch a full cage of selected fish. This is a bonus of October fishing. As the temperature drops, it is the pits that are worth fishing.

They catch bream during daylight hours. The bite depends on the weather - on cold days it subsides, on warm days it becomes more active.

Carp

In October, carp fishing continues with donks and special carp gear - the fish are large, strong, and you won’t be able to get by with an ordinary float rod here. But the reservoir is different. On one lake the carp are active and feeding, as they say, in full swing, on the other they have already burrowed into hibernation.

In October, carp fishing depends on the activity of searching for fish and their sites. Search guidelines:

• driftwood, snags
• reed islands
• flooded trees

As the temperature drops, go deeper in the pits. Until the algae die off, the fish usually leads its usual life.

Bait for carp is mandatory, with a smell to attract it to the fishing site. Bait - special carp boilies, potatoes, corn, even a worm - depending on the reservoir.

Burbot

A strange fish, burbot, spawns in the cold winter, is caught on a dark, cold night, well, not like all “normal” fish. Indeed, burbot fishing begins in the second half of October.

Burbot at the bottom under the lantern

They choose a darker and colder night - there is a greater chance of returning with a catch.

They catch burbots with the simplest donks made of fishing line, sinker and hook, and feeder rods. The baitfish (brush or minnow) is caught by the lip; the predator does not care about the method of bait; if it bites, it will definitely swallow it. They throw it into the depths, into holes, under snags and wait. The bite is unnoticeable, the fish fishes out without resisting.

Dace

If in the first ten days of October the weather is favorable, without sudden pressure surges, the dace will peck and be caught. Donks and feeders need to be thrown over the riffle onto the river bed. Flocks of dace usually drift here at this time. In a good place, a good catch is guaranteed.

In principle, bait is not needed, but porridge with chopped worms and maggots will not be superfluous. The bait is a worm, bloodworm, and rarely maggot.

What is special about October Fishing?

During October, the water temperature drops, numerous algae die off, water transparency increases significantly and the way of life of many inhabitants of lakes and rivers radically changes.

White fish leaves the Shallow Waters and “falls” into the pits. Many of them gather in flocks and feed only together.

So, for example, an ordinary float rod, which was so in demand when catching peaceful fish in the summer (Roach, Bream, Dace, Bleak, Carp, Carp, etc.), becomes less effective.

Yes, and it is advisable to use it now, except on the Pits, which are located near the Bank, Omutov, near dams, and on ponds - under the “dump” of the old riverbed.

Zherlitsy, mugs, live bait (video)

Pike, zander, perch

In October, live bait gear shows itself in all its glory. A greedy autumn predator, seeing a fish that is dying, staggering or twitching, will never let it pass, considering it an easy prey.

Mostly pike, pike perch, and less often perch are caught this way.

There is no point in retelling the devices and designs of these gears; they are publicly available on the Internet. Mugs are most often launched from a boat, live bait (line with or without a rod, float and hook with live bait) and girders (the same line with bait) are cast and caught from the shore. As live bait they take crucian carp, roach, ruffe, and minnows.

Fishing in October, autumn pike for mugs, video:

Pike fishing gear

There is still a long time until December, two whole months. Autumn is in full swing, it rains almost every day, there is a cold wind, and by the end of October, frost and the first frosts are already noticeable in some regions and regions. Of course, the peak of autumn delights will be in November, but even in October the weather is already such that many fishermen, who are used to sitting with a fishing rod for crucian carp or catching roach, have already put away their gear until spring. But it was at this time that the pike began to bite better and better, fattening up for the winter. We have already noted that somewhere from the end of August to September, the pike, in some sense of the word, comes out of a sleepy-amorphous state (if the summer was hot) and begins to fatten (read about pike fishing in September) . And October is precisely in this regard very tempting for spinning anglers and pike fishing enthusiasts.

It is clear that in October pike is caught both with a spinning rod and from a boat with various tackles, poles and circles . But it is spinning that has come out on top today , since it is a very affordable tackle, it is not difficult to purchase quite good tackle for reasonable money, and there are so many baits that it’s scary to even imagine. But the most interesting thing is that spinning, in a sense, is a universal tackle . So, a spinning rod can also be used for a spinner (wobbler, jig), as bottom tackle, install a pike float and fish for live bait. Naturally, a zherlitsa can be made from a spinning rod, but this is not so effective, since you can only fish in one place with one zherlitsa, and the autumn day is short, although...

Spinning

Pike

Spinning pike fishing in the fall differs from other seasons in the use of large baits, from 10 cm. The probability of biting a trophy fish increases significantly. These will not be 2-3-year-old grasses, but a seasoned deep-sea predator.

The retrieve is slow and medium, usually near the bottom. But not always. You need to fish all horizons. Often fish, following small fish, rise from the depths on warm days and approach the shore.

October beauty pike
Predator hunting in October is not as pronounced hourly as in summer. When it gets colder, pike can feed and therefore be caught all day. Cloudy, even rainy weather may be more favorable for fishing.

The baits are different - from spinners, wobblers to jigs with rubber. Metal colors - silver, bronze, gold, rubber colors - light green, green, yellow with a black back.

Perch

As always, spinners, twisters, and jigs work great for perch. Of the rotating spinners, the classics are in the top: “meps” 1-2 numbers Aglia, Comet, AgliaLong and others. Twisters should be bright red, pink, acid green, yellow. However, if the perch is on the hunt, it will take everything...

Recessed wiring. The best way to fish the bottom is with a twister on a jig head. Then you can use the entire arsenal of perch baits.

In October you need to look for striped fish closer to the riverbed and at changes in depth, where it often hunts for small fish emerging from holes to feed.

Pike perch (video)

Pike-perch on a jig in October
The best bait for pike-perch this month will be small live bait, small fish on a rig and rubber: a ripper, a vibrotail, and sometimes a twister on a jig head.

In October, walleye fishing is not much different from other open water calendar months. They catch the toothy one, like many predators in the depths. Driving along the bottom, with dragging and pauses.

Landmarks are whirlpools, near bridges, piles, driftwood and snags. In the deepest places of the reservoir.

Before wintering, pike perch gather in schools; it is quite possible to catch several worthy specimens from one place. It is good to fish the chosen fishing spot.

Fishing in October, catching pike perch with a jig, video:

In October with a float

In October you can say goodbye to comfortable fishing, perhaps, everywhere. Somewhere it started to rain, and somewhere it was already snowing. But this does not mean at all that the float rod can be pushed into the far corner of the pantry and written off until next spring.

There are fans who, even in winter, would not exchange the mesmerizing dance of the float for anything. However, the real cold is still far away, and a real fisherman is quite capable of, if not putting up with, then knowing how to resist it.

How to entice fish to bite?

At this time of year, most of the heat-loving inhabitants of the underwater world tend to go deeper. There you can count on a decent catch. In general, the time has come to take advantage of previously explored places. Moreover, if you are really planning to fish with a float rod, you should go to the river or lake not in the morning, but already around noon, when the water has warmed up at least a little. And don’t forget to take bait with you, which also has slightly different requirements than in summer. The main thing is that oil-containing plant components, such as cake, are almost completely excluded from the bait, but the proportion of components of animal origin increases: milk powder, egg powder, dried blood. And the color of the autumn bait should be darker. You can read more about this, as well as how much of this bait should be in the water, in the article “Autumn bait.”

Tackle is also undergoing changes. Everything should be as delicate as possible. Autumn fish are capricious and picky. Line - maximum 0.15 mm, lightweight weights and sensitive floats. And the hook, as a rule, gives way to a light jig with bait. Such prey is more attractive to the fish and travels faster to the required depth, depriving the finned small fish of the opportunity to feast on it, thereby leaving the fisherman without significant prey. And what’s interesting is that both peaceful fish and a large enough predator react equally actively to a relatively small bait that just a couple of months ago, they wouldn’t even pay attention to such a small thing.

Who's biting?

In fact, October catches are not so monotonous. And those who claim that, apart from the ubiquitous ruff and small perch, it is problematic to catch anything in the midst of autumn are very mistaken. On relatively small rivers, silver bream is caught quite well, bleak is a little less active, but is unable to refuse small maggots or ruby ​​bloodworms. A gudgeon takes an excellent bite of a worm right from the bottom, which, of course, competes with the ubiquitous ruff. If you try to fish with the wire, you can quite well train a dace, which is still trying to stay in the rapids. Small bream goes to depth, from where it can be lured mainly onto the bottom, but there are exceptions here too - at the beginning of the month, especially during periods of warming, the bronze-sided inhabitant of the bottom layer sometimes gets out closer to the shallows. And here he will never refuse the brush of the same bloodworm. The striped robber perch bites almost everywhere and on most known gear. Quite successfully, but with a somewhat specific float rod, you can catch pike. And on the lakes, during warmer days, crucian carp become noticeably more active.

crucian carp

This prey is desirable in the fall. Especially taking into account the increased capriciousness of this fish and pickiness in the proposed delicacies. Moreover, not every day does His Majesty deign to go fishing for crucian carp, but only on those days when the weather is more reminiscent of summer, the sun is shining and the wind is moderate, and so that the atmospheric pressure does not jump. And at this time, float fishermen again go to the treasured places in the hope of a characteristic bite, when the float shudders, rises slightly above the water, sits down and begins, gradually accelerating, to slide with a dive to the nearest thickets of aquatic vegetation. There is no reason to go for crucian carp only with vegetable baits in October. It’s worth stocking up on maggots and catching a steep-sided one on a “sandwich” with the addition of, say, steamed pearl barley or a couple of rolled oats flakes. Moreover, when steaming the cereal, it would not be superfluous to add salt to it, and it would also be a good idea to first place a whisk of dry dill with seeds in a bowl with hot water and cereal. The crucian carp respects him.

It will be necessary to make adjustments to the tackle. The first and, perhaps, most important thing is that autumn crucian carp does not strive to get closer to the shore, which means the rod should be as long as possible. In addition, crucian carp have nothing special to do on the surface at this time, which means they will have to look for it at depth. Accordingly, the float is needed with a larger load, and the weight itself will increase somewhat. The main line should be thin, ideally about 0.12 mm, and the leader should be 0.1 mm. It is better to have one hook, No. 10–12 according to the international classification, with a short shank and a round hook. It is very good at hooking, as it instantly and firmly bites into the thick, fleshy lips of the crucian carp.

Pike

I myself witnessed how a modest man with an ordinary telescopic rod easily caught venerable spinning rods. And the technology of that fishing is simple to the point of uniqueness. All you need is the rod itself, a serious reel with a supply of fishing line with a diameter of 0.3–0.35 mm, a leash with two fasteners, a sinker and a tee. Well, and the float - a kind of medium-sized egg made of dense foam. Its carrying capacity should be enough to prevent the bait - live bait - from going to depth. As for live bait, any small fish from the reservoir where fishing takes place will do.

Baiting a fish is very simple: the end of the leash is passed under one of the gill covers, brought out through the mouth, a tee is attached to it, the eye of which is hidden in the mouth of the bait fish. The main thing is to carefully, so as not to damage the fish, throw the tackle into an area where there may be a predator. And all that remains is to wait for the bite.

By the way, watching how the bite occurs is very exciting. You can even guess in advance that the catch is about to happen: at the sight of a predator, the baitfish begins to rush about, dragging the float along with it, then it abruptly goes under the water, floats up and, having moved a short distance, freezes. There is no need to rush; pike, as a rule, do not immediately swallow their prey. He holds it across the body for some time, and trying to hook it now will only scare away the predator. But when the float starts moving again and dives sharply into the depths, make a wide, sweeping hook to take out all the slack in the line at once. It is more than possible to pull a pike weighing up to 5 kg ashore with such tackle.

Perch

This striped robber becomes even more active with the onset of autumn cold weather. Tirelessly, whole flocks scour the pond in search of prey, and themselves become the prey of a successful fisherman. Perch aggressively attacks both small live bait and spinners, is interested in jigs with bait and spinners, and does not ignore the worm. A float rod can give quite significant results. Especially if you hunt for “sailor fish” somewhere from a steep bank above a dump, from a bridge, or settle down comfortably above a pier. Often, if an angler starts fishing by baiting bleaks, after an hour he has to change the gear to a little more serious one, since the predator also joins the cheerful crush of small fish from all over the area. You can also specifically lure perch. This will be especially effective on a pond, lake or in the bays of reservoirs. For this you will need small bloodworms. Fragrant and active, it quickly provokes the perch not only into biting, but into eating, where each individual tries to snatch its portion of the delicacy from under the noses of its less fortunate pack mates.

Roach

When fishing on lakes, this fish becomes one of the main objects of hunting. You should look for it at the border of clear water and vegetation - closer to the bottom. Tireless in search of prey, roaches actively choose all kinds of underwater living creatures that have suddenly lost their usual shelters. This is where you should cast a fishing rod with some bug, worm, maggot or a bunch of bloodworms on the hook. And you definitely won’t be left without loot.

Gudgeon

This inhabitant of areas with a clean bottom and fast current may seem small, but catching it is a real pleasure. Moreover, in the fall, minnows also gather in schools, which begin to actively feed, competing with each other for every particle of food. And if you sprinkle a portion of small bloodworms into such a place, the bites will follow one after another and will subside only closer to dusk.

It is worth adding that in October you can also hunt well for medium-sized carp. Having eaten up over the summer, he does not mind snacking on a delicious worm, and often becomes the prey of a fisherman. On a number of rivers, trout take shrimp or a piece of lard. But her bites are rare. As you can see, with the arrival of autumn, life under water is in no hurry to die out. You just need to know where, who and what you can catch. This means that it’s too early to write off the float rod, at least in the next month.

Arseny Favstritsky, Kazan

Fly fishing

If in September the water allowed fishing with different flies, then in October it is noticeably cleaner and more transparent, placing increased demands on flies.

The basic rule is that the colder it is, the thinner the leader and the smaller the fly.

This situation makes both casting and landing fish more responsible, so where possible, it is better to fish with a streamer. The leash in the rig is more reliable here.

Among flies, preference is given to imitations of dipterans and small caddis flies.

Chub fly fishing (video)

If the first weeks in October are warm, chub can be caught using wet imitations of nymphs and subimagos. Interestingly, larger individuals are found at this time. As the weather gets colder, the bites at the surface stop.

Video of fly fishing for chub in October:

Ide

A more cautious ide will recognize a decoy in clear autumn water. It’s rare, but you still manage to catch him. The smallest wet ones are taken from the flies, including imitations of caddisfly nymphs, mayflies and stoneflies.

It bites only on warm days. The tackle must be designed for long casts, camouflage is necessary.

Well, that’s all, the big open water fishing season, as well as the fishing calendar of the year, is coming to an end. The last November trips to the water are ahead, and then winter and a trip to the ice. But that is another story.