Smelt Fishing. What And What To Catch. Catch A Cucumber Fish

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Fishing Academy

Smelt fishing in St. Petersburg has been practiced since ancient times. For example, I still remember the times when fishermen used simple, primitive fishing rods with homemade floats and any hooks for fishing it. Nowadays, everything is different: fishing gear is improving, but smelt is becoming less and less.

How to catch …

For the most part, today's anglers use foam fishing rods to extract smelt. Their length ranges from 15 to 20 centimeters. Moreover, the reel plays an essential role. That is, the longer the reel, the faster the unwinding and winding of the line occurs, and the possibility of twisting it decreases.

It is not difficult to make an alarm clock yourself. The body should be cut from dense foam (fig. 1). It doesn't matter if it looks unprepossessing, the main thing is the convenience of using it.

A few years ago, the most common tackle for catching smelt was a fishing rod with a reel (Fig. 2). The reel allows you to quickly unwind and rewind the tackle. But at the same time, the line often gets tangled. Especially when playing fish. Therefore, the coil is used less and less. In addition, the factory fishing rod does not float. It is worth not reacting to the bite in time - and the fish will drag the tackle into the water.

Fishermen now rarely use floats, they are replaced by elastic nods. Usually the nod is a twisted steel spring about 10 centimeters long. In order for the bites to be clearly visible, a bright red foam ball is attached to the end of the nod (Fig. 3).

When fishing for smelt, the fishing line is not of fundamental importance, but most often it is used with a diameter of 0.25 - 0.3 millimeters. The main criterion when choosing a fishing line is not its ability to withstand maximum loads, but its ability to twist. After all, you often have to fish at great depths, sometimes deeper than 30 meters.

Mormyshki are of no small importance. There are many of them, differing in size and shape. Glowing jigs and small spoon baits with hooks No. 5-8 are especially popular (due to their catchability).

The usual tackle consists of 2-3 jigs. The lower one is tied about 5 centimeters from the sinker. The next one is 20-25 centimeters from the first. If a third jig is installed, it is fixed one meter higher than the second. They are tied to the main line on three-centimeter leashes. This length prevents them from curling around the main line. You need to wind 35-40 meters of fishing line on the fishing rod.

Sometimes it happens that the smelt is dispersed in different water horizons. And then it is very effective fishing on the so-called "whatnot". This is the same standard tackle, only it uses up to 10 jigs, located 1.2-1.5 meters apart (Fig. 4). And although smelt rarely appears in the upper layers of water, there is still a chance to catch it there. You should always have spare jigs as well. With an active bite on the "whatnot", you should attach the jigs to ordinary fishing rods - to the depth where the bites happened.

If you catch smelt with spoons, then it is more expedient to put a small spoon than a large one. After all, both large and small fish can grab it.

What to catch?

The nozzle is of decisive importance when fishing for smelt. Surprisingly, the most catchy nozzle is the smelt itself. This is explained by the fact that she is very sensitive to odors. And since the smelt has a very pungent, specific smell, its gourmet addiction is quite understandable. You just need to remember that smelt meat is a very flimsy nozzle. Therefore, it quickly loses its working condition and requires frequent replacement. Often this has to be done almost after every bite.

However, most anglers use perch (ruff) meat. It is good because it stays on the hook for a long time and is able to withstand more than one bite. In this case, perch and ruff do not replace each other. In some cases, for some reason smelt takes better on a perch, in others - on a ruff. Why this happens is unknown.

Fresh herring is good for baiting. It is fresh, not frozen from the store. The meat of this fish is very attractive to smelt. There are significantly more bites than any other nozzle. But since the herring meat is also tender, there are a lot of gatherings. Besides, catching Baltic herring is not easy at all.

The specific fishing nozzle is determined at the fishing site. The nozzle is cut into small cubes and alternately changed. In this way, it turns out what the smelt prefers on this day.