Autumn is finally here!

 October, a month that resonates with all pike anglers! 

With the Covid situation the lodge is still closed at the moment. Tonight at midnight the whole country is passing to level 3 of restrictions. So we are not supposed to leave our county of residence, and the lodge cannot welcome people from outside the county...Again lucky for me i have loads of free time and plenty of water to fish!

With some early frost and sunny days, the weather was shaping up to be perfect last week for some fishing.

This is when you need to get out!

I decided to start dusting off my trolling gear and start tuning in the boat for this winter.

The lunar calendar was spot on, with a very wide major for the day i picked. Weather was for a cold start, fog and then sunny with an approaching front given for the evening. To add to all this the barometer was dropping slowly or the last 16 hours.

As you can see on the pics big lures where on the menu, 35 and 40cm was the winning combo!

Also check the sonar captures, you can clearly see the pike and the baitfish ball on each pictures. One thing to notice is also the configuration , look at the depth and the picture, they both look identical, but both are from a different spot and at a different time!

When you get so much information like this, there is no excuse not to fish at the right spots! 

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!