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!