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Not so long ago, on one of the October weekends, I went in search of a predator with a spinning rod. Recently, I always try to take my eight-year-old son with me, and my fishing trips are more and more like a transfer of experience. We walked around, furrowed the riverbed holes and promising backwaters with baits, but did not see a single bite. The guy’s fuse of enthusiasm quickly burned out and he began to ask to go home. I had to explain for a long time that the fish does not bite always and not everywhere, especially the pike, to which the child asked legitimate questions: “So, when does the pike bite? How to determine for sure the day when you will stay with the catch? Briefly, I explained to him that it depends on many factors: the direction of the wind, the phase of the moon, the availability of food resources, the method of catching pike at a certain time and in a certain place. You can’t tell about it in a nutshell, so let’s talk about everything in order.
Pike is a unique predator of our rivers and lakes
First of all, you should carefully study the object of fishing. Will not go into details with its foreign and scientific names and habitat. Pike is an unpretentious predator and lives in almost all places filled with fresh water, ranging from ponds filled with rainfall, swampy reservoirs or flooded channels after peat extraction and ending with large river deltas at their confluence with the seas and oceans.
This is primarily due to the low demands on the oxygen content in the water. The main condition is the presence of an abundant food base. Perhaps, the forecast for biting pike for future fishing will depend on this factor. It can be safely called the main one, since the pike feeds all year round, without falling into suspended animation, and only during the dead winter period does its activity decrease somewhat. Then she can stand for days at some point, not reacting to anything around and only a bait or live bait placed directly on her nose can provoke a bite.
The main methods of catching pike
There are only two of them: for live bait and spinning equipment using artificial lures. Considering that the main predator of our water area is caught year-round, then for each season you need to know your tackle and the most effective and promising way to catch it. For example, catching pike in autumn for spinning is a more promising activity than for live bait, since it is in autumn that it is more aggressive and rushes at everything that floats by, often precisely from an act of aggression or defense of its territory. This explains sometimes stuffed to the stop belly toothy.
Let’s consider both methods in more detail:
Live bait
I would single out this type of fishing as the main one when hunting for pike in winter. In the summer-autumn period, the preferences of anglers diverge. Some put mugs, sailing to promising places on boats. Someone rests at a time when the pike has a zhor in the fall, catching it on an ordinary float fishing rod. All you need is just to strengthen its equipment.
Thus, we smoothly approached the main gear for catching live bait. Let’s start in autumn, since the vast majority of fishermen believe that pike bite most intensively in autumn, which in my opinion is a big mistake:
- in autumn, it is more efficient to catch live bait using circles.
Their design is quite simple: these are ordinary foam pancakes with a groove in the end of the circle, where the main fishing line is wound. At the end of this not tricky gear, a sinker from 4 to 10 grams is mounted, a leash is knitted and a tee or double is installed. One side of the mug is painted red. At rest, the circle is in the water with an unpainted, white side to the top, and at the time of the pike attack, when unwinding the fishing line, the circle turns over to the top with the red side, thereby signaling to the angler that it is urgent to jump on the oars.
As it was written above, the pike responds well to float tackle in the fall. It is only necessary to put a float with a larger carrying capacity and an appropriate sinker to it, so that the live bait does not have the opportunity to drag it back and forth.
- in winter, the main way of catching live bait is zherlitsy (winter rates).
Their essence is the same as that of the circles, but there are much more design modifications. It can be a peg with a built-in coil and a flexible metal strip, at the end of which is a flag made of bright fabric. There may be a tripod on which the coil is fixed and a flag is also mounted. But most often they use a vent in the form of a flat circle, on which a coil and a flag are installed separately on a flexible strip. The equipment is practically no different from the equipment of the mug, with only one exception: disputes about the material of the leash still do not subside. Many believe that in winter the water is the most transparent and the metal black leash scares away the pike, and in order to increase catches and dull the vigilance of the toothy one, you should use only a leash made of fluorocarbon fishing line. From my own experience, I can say that when a pike bites, it does not care what material the leash is on the zherlitsa. Especially closer to spring on the eve of spawning, when the pike is working up its sides.
- spring is the most difficult and unpromising season in trying to catch a predator.
Until the end of March, there is a ban associated with pike spawning, then a ban on entering the water, including by boat, comes into force, and the most significant is the fact that after spawning, the pike is inactive, which ichthyologists associate with the so-called molting of teeth.
in summer, as in autumn, it is best to use summer mugs (mugs).
On a float fishing rod, you can not try. If you manage to catch it, then it will be a very big success. In summer, conditions are quite difficult. And if in the fall it is not particularly important, then in the summer it is necessary to take into account at what pressure the pike bites. The lower it is, the less likely it is to see a greedy bite.
Spinning tackle fishing
We can conditionally distinguish two types of spinning: for fishing in open water and for fishing from ice.
It makes no sense to linger on a winter fishing rod for a long time. This is, as a rule, an ordinary whip with a conventional inertial coil and mounting either a spinner or a balancer at its end. Of the specific baits, rattlins and cicadas can be distinguished, the use of which is very narrow and they are used only by gourmets. Actually, spinning ice fishing itself is quite dynamic and tiring, because not everyone will be able to drill several hundred holes in search of the coveted trophy.
More simple, but no less dynamic in this regard, spinning fishing for open water. It is for the open, as they can be caught all year round. Even in the most severe frosts, you can find places that are not covered with ice and continue your favorite pastime. Currently, the classification of spinning rods is very wide, depending on the test, building and blank material.
The most optimal for catching pike is a rod made of composite materials of medium-fast action with a test from 10 to 30 grams. It is with this rod that you can perform the main pike wiring: jig, lure, twitching and poppering. Sometimes it is this or that way of feeding the bait, regardless of its size and color, that plays a significant role in activating the bite of a pike.
The reel is used inertialess or multiplier, on which a fishing line or braided thread is wound. What to use, line or braid, I believe that this is an individual question for each angler. For many years now I have been using only braided line, since it is impossible to carry out the above-mentioned wiring so effectively with fishing line due to its significant extensibility, with the exception of pulling oscillating baubles. And if there is no high-quality wiring, then the likelihood of a bite is sharply reduced.
Consider the main postings in their totality with various types of baits:
Classic jig
one of the main pike postings, on which it is most likely to catch a toothy one. The essence of the bite is to imitate a wounded or sick fish, moving forward or jerking, as if with the last of its strength. What could be more seductive for a predator? You don’t need to spend a lot of energy to catch up and attack. They usually jiggle as follows – 3-4 turns of the coil and then a 5 second pause. Experimenting is not forbidden, you can increase or decrease both the number of revolutions and the duration of pauses. Silicone baits are used for such wiring: rippers, twisters, vibro-tails, which are attached either to a solid jig head or to an offset hook, which is mounted on a separate weight, which people called Cheburashka.
Glistening
The simplest and most inefficient, in my opinion, bait supply. The bottom line is to simply turn the coil, adjusting only the speed of the wiring. You can pause, but due to the severity of the spinners, there is practically no sense from them. The spinner also imitates a wounded fish, moving chaotically and representing an easy prey. Unlike visualization, it is not the predator’s visual perception that works in this wiring, but oscillatory movements in the water. As everyone has already guessed, they use such wiring when fishing on oscillating and rotating baubles.
Twitching
a sharp twitch of the bait, imitating an affected fish in the middle layers of the species and not able to sink to the bottom, but striving there with all its movements, this is what provokes the pike to attack. When twitching, only wobblers are used.
Poppering
broach floating wobbler (popper) on the surface of the water. Animation and wiring should create a lot of noise and splash, thereby attracting the attention of a predator. Popper is considered a summer bait, but I caught it well in the fall, which once again proves that pike bites almost always, you just need to be able to pick up the treasured key.
Dependence of pike behavior on weather conditions
The main factor for successful fishing of any fish, of course, is the weather. That is why on the eve of fishing, many anglers watch weather and bite forecasts and puzzle over what weather is best to catch pike.
All fish, without exception, react very painfully to significant changes in the weather, which include air temperature, and, accordingly, water temperature, atmospheric pressure, the presence of precipitation and a change in wind direction. From my point of view, the most optimal weather for catching a toothy predator is a regime that has been established for three days without significant changes in conditions.
If the weather is not stable and it changes from sun to rain every day, then it is best to choose slightly windy weather, when there are small ripples on the surface of a reservoir or river. During this period, the pike becomes less shy, the ripples blur the outlines of objects, and the pike more actively approaches the shore for feeding.
A separate line of natural phenomena is occupied by the phases of the moon. All of them do not have such a significant effect on the bite, with the exception of the full moon. It is during the full moon that the activity of fish tends to zero, and with it the occupancy of our kukans and cages. Ichthyologists attribute this behavior of the inhabitants of the depths to the fact that on the full moon there is the strongest attraction emanating from the moon. And although it does not provoke tides in rivers and lakes, it begins to significantly affect the water level in reservoirs. This negatively affects the swim bladder of the fish, since it is he who is responsible for its orientation in space. Therefore, it is so important to periodically review the lunar calendar for your area.
In conclusion, I will say this – due to the fact that all busy people and not always and not everyone succeeds in choosing the appropriate weather, the philosophical question, when a pike bites, needs to be transferred from the category of quantitative to qualitative. Do not wait for the zhora, but pick up a master key to this cherished chest with baits and wires upon arrival at a reservoir or river here and now.