Tactical winter Part1

Winter fishing marks for me a whole new approach to my fishing. The weather can get pretty unpleasant here during the winter months, bitterly winds, rain and sleet are on the menu on a regular basis.

When all goes to plan! Sadly it's not always the case.

The fly rods will see less and less action over the next few months, of course if we are so lucky to get a good break in the weather i will definitely try for a winter mama on the fly!
The biggest issue with winter fly fishing is to be able to present the fly to the fish properly, depth and speed is crucial to tempt a winter pike. Water temperatures usually over around 4º to 6º and this means pikes will look for a comfortable thermocline. On my local lakes 8 to 20m are the zones to work.

Cold, freezing fog...Will they feed?

The fly will have some successful days but mainly big rubber lures are the winning combo.
Again, presentation is so important, these big winter fish will not come up the water column to hunt your lure, you need to place it at the right depth.
Speed too plays a huge part, generally the colder the temperatures, the slower the troll.
Yes you can also cast and retrieve on a drift or at anchor, but i'm a firm believer that a slow troll at a constant depth will entice a (large) fish to eat.
In recent years the idea that big fish like to follow a bait to inspect it for a long time is proven time and time again with the help of the latest technology. Cameras that you can attach in from of your lure are a real eye opener in understanding how pikes behave to our lures. And if you spend time looking at some of the footage on youtube you will see more than often large fish following the lure for quite some amount of time before they hit it. Here's an example of a very curious pike:



These are the days where i don't look for big numbers of captures, but instead i concentrate more into getting the big one. After all i have all spring and summer to catch pikes in numbers, and on the fly. So in tempting to land a big girl we have to make a selection in lures. I like to go big at this time of the year, not "stupid" big, like the 50/60cm lures, but i tend to fish lures in the region of 25/35cm. The  40cm Magdawgs from Musky innovation would be my limit.

The inline lure from Westin did not take long to get noticed!

Knowing where to fish is crucial

Its not always the big fish that like big lures in the winter..

I will get into more details on the gear i use in my next blog, so keep tuned!

Signs of life...

Hey guys! After a long resting period the blog is back...Sorry for the lack of entries but i started running a second blog on the lodge website. It's mostly updates on how the fishing and the clients are doing on a weekly basis.If you are interested here's the link to the website: www.ile-verte.com
I nearly thought of getting rid of this blog all together and merging it with the one of the lodge, but after looking at the analytics i see this blog is still alive and the traffic still look healthy, so i will keep this blog going.
Not that the winter is settling slowly here, my fishing will change a little. Ireland can have some very changeable weather and conditions at the best of times , but in winter this can change for the  worse. Fly fishing windows are getting rare for many reasons, cold, wind and fish sitting in deeper waters makes fly fishing difficult and i'm not into struggling for no reasons. Big rubber lures will be more present in the coming months, but don't worry die hard fly anglers, if a good window presents itself i won't miss an opportunity to get the fly rod out.
I know it's not just fly fishermen that read this blog so i will try to keep everyone happy...
Please fill free to leave in the comments section below any subjects you guys might want to see more in the coming months.
Fear not fly anglers, i have many new tutorials coming up in the next few weeks. I'm nearly finished a busy season here at the lodge and soon i will have more free time to do fresh tutorials for you guys!

So for the winter season i am getting my personal boat ready, a new 15HP Yamaha was installed last year but i was having big problems to get my boat on the plane.Quite strange as my old engine was also a Yam 15 fitted with exactly the same propeller.
So i fitted some hydrofoils and the problem was instantly sorted! I went for the SE Sport 200 hydrofoil. They look sturdy and i like the fact that it's one piece. First try on the water and i runs like a dream, definitely a good investment.

Second massive upgrade is the new tech on board. I got rid of my Humminbird 998 HD side imaging and replaced it with a Garmin Echomap plus 92sv. The reason is simple, Garmin is so much more user friendly and when i'm fishing i don't like wasting time changing settings. The GARMIN has a touch screen and i can draw and record the bottom of your favorite lake. Humminbird can do this but it's such a backward software...And it's not  IOS compatible.

I can already spot a pike looking at a bunch of baitfish

Garmin has also an app called the Active Captain that you can install on your phone or tablet, and you can move and visualize your maps in a flash.You can also share them with friends...If you trust them...
And one important last detail, this unit is compatible with the Panoptix livescope transducer! As yet no other company has come up with something similar or even got close to the Panoptix. I think it's only a matter of time before other will follow with something similar and the prices will start to come down.  Check the video below on the Panoptix livescope.

super easy menu to navigate

The green is so easy to look at with polarized glasses.