Winter has come... Ice fishing for Perch

This year it is a little bit colder in december. That is why we are unable to fish for zander or asp anymore, but new opportunieties arrives. My nearby lake has frozen and we tried to catch some nice perches from ice! We started early in the morning because the water and the ice were very clear and it is the best time to catch the biggest fish. Later when it is very bright they can be very suspicious and impossible to fool :)

The ice was very thin  (~5cm) but we had special floatation suits, and we tried to remember not to walk close to each other :)

We caught some really nice perches >30cm with small ice pilkers, We also had some big perches that we lost during fight and occasionally some small pike was interested in our lures. 

Ice fishing could be really fun when you can't go fishing anywhere else... :) 

I also made a short movie when my friend Marek caught a nice 32cm perch. I hope you will like it:)

Trout day! Trouts, video-clip and lures

Last sunday I was fishing for trout with spinning rod. I used handmade lures and great trout lures from Smith - mostly D-Contact, but also Jade and D-Incite. 

It was a nice day - a little bit cloudy, but only a few drops of rain dropped. I started late ~8AM because, but we stayed there almost till 2PM - with some breaks.

The day started well with catching a nice 40cm(16in) trout on the first spot. After few casts accross the stream with handmade lure I made a little bit longer cast downstream. My lure dropped in the calm water. I draged it with a few twitches to the stronger stream and BAM! Very powerful bite! After a short fight nice trout was in my hand. I released it carefully after taking a photo :)

Few next spots gave my nothing, but the water was really nice and I knew it is just the matter of time until I will get another bite. Maybe an hour later finally something started to change. I had a lot of missed bites. Trouts were rising to my lure and than just touching it or biting really carefully. Very hard to set the hook. Of course sometimes I managed to deceive some of them. Most of better bites I had with Smith D-Contact and Jade. New lures my friend Baptiste showed and gave me.

Smith lures are very very very good quality. Nice colors, heavy trout twichbaits that are quite easy to use and sometimes they make a difference!

Like this day. They are very lifelike and maybe that is a part of their secret... In fact I think they are one of my favourites now! If you want you can read my post from the past about my trout lures here. Lot of them I still use, but also I've added some new ones:)

This time I was also using a sport camera on my head and I tried to film make a clip from my fishing trip. It was my first time so I think I must learn a lot but it was really fun to do it:) I already uploaded my clip to Youtube. Fell free to watch and comment!

I'm back fishing and posting!

Hi!

     After a long break caused by personal issues I've finally decided to go back to blogging. Recently (Last 1,5 year) i had no much time for fishing, although I did some good trips and caught nice fishes. I will make a fast update in this entry and next posts and than I will be able to move with current news.

     First thing to write about must be my best trip last year. It was september. Water level in Odra river was very low. It was hot and sunny. I arrived on my best spot in the morning and started hammering with Hunter lures for asp. After maybe 20 minutes i felt a good stron bite in the middle of strong stream. The fight took almost 10 minutes. Asps were very strong and fat after summer. Especially this one :) Lucky for me I landed my biggest asp this year - 74cm

     After releasing the fish I went downstream because it made too much noise n my spot. I travelled ~2km and caught only small chub and 45cm asp. After that I decided to make a break, eat something, drink a beer and rest a little. After few hours I came back to my spot and caught another - even bigger asp. Not so fat, but much longer 80cm fish. It was my PB and it will be for a while I suppose.

     Unfortunatelly I one hook from my lure stuck in my finger during unhooking. Nevertheless nothing could take my joy of catching 2 so big asps in one day. Both fishes are growing bigger and I'm looking forward to catch them again this year! :)

Nice Rainbow trout

Next weekend and we are fishing for rainbow trout in Czarna Przemsza river again!
Last weekend we caught a brown trout instead of rainbow. Today we accomplished our goal :) This time it was colder than week ago. It was at about 0C and in the evening came frost. Now - at about midnight it is -2C and it's snowing. Everything is white outside... 

We had only 3 hours of fishing but it was enough for 2 nice rainbows. Mine was smaller ~12in, but Natalia had a big luck to land a beautiful dark coloured ~15 - 16in rainbow! 

On this photo our trout has a little "scared eyes", but I can assure it came back to water in a good shape! :)

Asp - fantastic sport fish!

Asp - sometimes called "salmon for the poor" is an awesome game fish. It is very hard to catch - you can catch it  only with artificial lures - but the bite is every time spectacular and impossible to forget!

How does this fish look like? Like this! :)

Asp on this photo is at about 28in but in big rivers like Vistula and Odra they grow up to 40in and 20LB! This one on a photo is my PB, but i hope I will face a bigger one soon !

Typical asp spots:

Asp live in big lowland rivers - they feed mostly on bleak, but also sometimes on silver bream, roach or small chub. Asp is a super fast predator and when you stand for a while by the river you can watch his attacks on the shoals of bleak. Check out on YT movie!

How to catch this fish? Chack out another YT clip made by my friend from Hunter Lures!:

If you want to catch an asp you must try it with special lures. Lot of polish lure producers make special wobblers for asp - for example Salmo thrill or Gloog hermes, but for me the best one is HUNTER SPIRIT! But it must be used with VERY fast spinning

Sometimes when the water is cold and asps are not as fast an aggressive i use some different lures and then i fish a little bit slower:

On the first photo you can find a long slim spoon and different upgraded soft lures, the second photo shows wobblers for slower spinning - HUNTER SOUL, HUNTER CHAMPION, Rapala Husky Jerk, Salmo Sting, Rapala Original and one hand made wobbler -  special for asp. If you want to catch an asp you don't need any more, but these lures and lot of time:)

I realize, most of you will not have an opportunity to fish for asp, but in this post i wanted to show you, that somewhere in the world are different than bass sport fishes and hunting for them can be exciting!!

Fantastic Last Sunday

Hi!
I'm writing this post so late, due to lack of time. I had to prepare a short movie (bad quality because of old mobile phone - sorry).


Last Sunday I was fishing for zander on one of my favourite dam reservoirs. For first two hours I couldn't find any fishing and I had to go by boat to almost all my spots. Finally i find THIS place and had a first bite and first fish also - 20in zander.

10 minutes later I had another two and I lost one before landing. I was trying lot of lures (crankbaits, softlures and of course KOGUT lures - they were most effective. Especially the one made for this blog recently:

After this few fishes I made a break to eat my second breakfast. Then zanders disappeared. I was trying to find them, but I caught only 2 small pikes. I thought it was over. In addition it was VERY HOT and sunny and I was fishing in sunken forest - you know what does it mean... :)


I decided to come bach to the place where I caught first fish. It was very good choice. In a very short time I had another 4 zanders - a bit bigger: 22 - 24in and small 20in pike.

Then after 20 minutes without bite i made a difficult decision - go home. It was 3PM, very sunny and I had nothing to drink.Without a doubt it was my best day this year. Fishes weren't very big, but big amount of them was enough for me. A few of them I've recorded for you with my poor quality mobile phone:)





I was using 2 sets
1) Shimano Alivio 2,6m up to 21g (3/4oz) with Daiwa regal XiA 2000 and 6lb P-Line braid.
2) Dragon Destiny spinn slimm design 2,1m (7ft) up tp 21g (3/4oz) with Team Daiwa R4 3012 and 15LB Spiderwire Stealth braid.

Zander Hunting!

For last few days I have been hunting for a big zander with my friends. We were fishing between 3am and 8am at monday, tuesday and thursday. We have been trying to catch a really big zander (30 -35in at least), but it isn't a easy challenge. We had a few bites of small zanders (at about 20in). 

Everyone at least once lost a big zander before landing. We were out of luck...

Finally my friend Marek caught at 5am a very nice zander - +30in with my KOGUT JIG.

I hope next time I'll be the lucky one :)

New site - how to spinning for catfish?

Hi!
Today I described a little my strategies of spinning for catfish. That is why there is a new site on my blog:

Spinning for catfish!

Feel free to ask and comment here!

My fantastic spinning catfishes

My catch of year!

There is finnaly warm and sunny. I fish as often as possible, but I have lot of work with my studies and job. Recently i was trying to catch some asp. May is the best period for asps. Instead of them I was able to fight with the biggest and most powerfull fish of Poland - Catfish!

I was using quite sensitive rod and thin monofilament, so it was difficult to stop this fishes, but both long fights ended lucky for me!

39LB Catfish!

75LB Catfish!!!

This was the best day in my whole fishing life! Two big fishes in few hours! Landed succesfully!

I think it is time to write some post about catfish in Poland!
I'm just starting to write it! :)

Brown Trout & Rainbow Trout Spining Lures

Fishing for brown trout and rainbow trout

is very popular in Poland. Today i would like to show you my selection of spinning lures for trout. In Poland trout are present as well in mountain streams and rivers (like Dunajec and San) as in small lowland streams. Everywhere people use a bit different lures, but this difference isn't very big. I distinguished 3 main groups of these lures:

• crankbaits
• jigs
• spoons and spinners

CRANKBAITS:

First group of crankbaits - used in bigger streams and mainly in winter and spring are quite big lures - 2,5in - 3in (Salmo Hornet 5, Salmo Minnow 7, Rapala Original 7, BigBait Caster, Góral, Kenart)

Second group of crankbaits - smaller and very versatile (between 1,5in and 2,5in). You can use this lures everywhere and everytime. This lures in my box are: Salmo Hornet 4, BigBait Flyer, Salmo Bullhead, Rapala Original 5, YoZuri Ace Minnow, Jaxon Ferox 4.

Third Group - smallest crankbaits (1in - 1,5in), used mainly in summer and in smaller streams: Salmo Horner 2,5, Salmo Hornet 3, and my FAVOURITE TROUT LURES - Góral - in many different color choices. Best small lures i have ever had!

JIGS:

Sometimes - mainly in wintervery effective are small jigs - as well plastic jigs as marabou and "kogut". I don't like to use them for trout, but sometimes I have to if I want to hook something :)

SPINNERS AND SPOONS:

Spinners are good lures mainly in summer, when trout feed on bugs. Spoons are always good, but they are better for brown trouts than for rainbows.

It is worth to try! :)

Zander Fishing- lures, spots, technique

How to catch a zander ???

Zander (pike-perch) is a fantastic sport fish well known in almost whole Europe. it grows over 20kg (44 pounds), but typical catches are much smaller of course. most common are zanders between 1 and 6kg (2 - 13 pounds). Zander is a close cousin of American walleye.

Zander lives in lakes, dam reservoirs, rivers and in Baltic sea also. The best are deep spots with sand, rocks or gravel at the bottom. Of course zanders sometimes, when feeding come near to the shoreline and feed on fry in very shallow places. This situation occurs mainly at night. After sunrise it is better to find zanders near to sunken tree rots, big rocks, etc..

Zander fishing is VERY popular in Poland. That is why you need to find some special lures or techniques to achieve success. I have got 3 main types of lures, that I use regular 

1)POLISH JIG - "KOGUT" is a fantastic lure - invented in south of Poland at about 20 years ago. For a long time it was a good protected secret. Now everyone knows about "kogut" but not everyone knows how to make it and how to use it. I make this jigs by myself. Sometimes even my friends want me to do a few "Koguty" for them. I will write soon a tutorial "How to make your own polish jig - kogut". I'm using "Kogut" 70% of time when fishing for zander.

2) Most popular group are softlures with relatively heavy jig heads. If the depth of your spot is 3m (10ft), you should use 14 - 28g (1/2 - 1oz) jig head. The key is to raise your lure very fast from the bottom and let it fall down again. 90% bites comes when jig is falling down, so it is necessary to have great contact with your lure.

My favourite jigs are:

• Relax kopyto, california, clonay
• Lunker city shaker
• Dragon lunatic

3) Last, but not least group are slender crankbaits and slashbaits. They are fantastic lures, when zanders come to shallow spots to feed on fry. Most people use them only in rivers, but I do this in lakes and dam reservoirs too. In this group  I use mainly:

• Salmo sting 6cm, 9cm floating, suspending and sinking
• Rapala husky jerk, original
• Kamatsu jointed minnow
• Salmo minnow shallow runner and super deep runner

All this lures are effective, when you find zanders and use your lure correct. Zander fishing is quite difficult and it is necessary to learn all the time, but catching a BIG zander is the best reward.