Unexpected Catch

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

Fishing luck - a very capricious and fickle lady. You are preparing for a trip to the reservoir with all diligence: the tackle is fine-tuned, and the bait is varied, and the weather seems to be favorable, but disappointment awaits on the shore - there is no bite, as if a conspiracy against you has been declared in the fish kingdom. There is probably no amateur fisherman, even the most experienced one, who would not face such a situation.

And then suddenly, as luck tramples - the bite is such that the heart rejoices. And fish tails splash profusely in the cage.

And Nikolai Ivanovich Krasichenok more than once experienced both joy and disappointment from trips to the Berezina or to ponds and lakes in the vicinity of his native village of Chirkovichi. Especially in recent years. He worked in the Belorusneft company as a driver. The time has come for retirement - they were honored. And there was time for a favorite hobby - fishing.

Installation of circles on the oxbow Evening dawn, Belarus, Svetlogorsk

No, of course, he did not indulge in hobby all day long. The villagers, and they and their wife, Anastasia Ivanovna, have moved from a city apartment to their parent's country estate, there are always enough things to do.

Nikolai Ivanovich's hands, as the people say, are golden. He put the hut on a new foundation, renewed the roof, sheathed the house with siding - and now the old manor looks like new. And city amenities are also in the house. So you can live and not grieve. And also, like everyone else in the village, they have a large vegetable garden, where, in addition to the usual potatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, garlic, peas, tomato beds, there are greenhouses with peppers and eggplants. And the hostess - a big lover of flowers - took a significant part of the site to her favorites. Dozens of varieties of roses, many dahlias, hydrangeas and other flowering plants bloom there in summer.

In addition, they keep several dozen laying hens, sometimes breed and raise turkey poults, and all these animals require daily attention and care.

But still, there are significantly more opportunities for fishing than before retirement. As you know, the best fishing time is morning and evening, so Nikolai Ivanovich uses them. I remember that a couple of years ago he invited me in a small company to go in the evening to the oxbow - the old bed of the Berezina - to relax in a beautiful pine forest and go fishing. While the women were gathering food on the table, Nikolai Ivanovich in a small boat, which he made himself, and so that it fit inside the van of an old Volkswagen, swam to set mugs. The evening was calm, the smooth surface of the water was calm, only behind the boat were light waves. He baited on the tee of the crucian carp and lowered the circle in an empty space among the yellow egg-pods and other aquatic plants. Soon more than ten circles lined up on the water in an uneven line, their bright side turned towards the sky.

Nikolai Ivanovich swam to the shore to have a snack, and I went with a fishing rod to the water - to try my luck. The evening was very warm, the fish, apparently, also decided to rest - there were no bites at all. I looked first at the float, then at the mugs whitening in the approaching darkness. Suddenly one of them turned abruptly and showed its reverse side painted with red paint. I called Nikolai Ivanovich. Not having time to have supper, he climbed back into the boat and started to paddle. And after a couple of minutes he pulled out of the water and showed us the caught pike. It looks about a kilogram. We also examined other mugs - they were lying calmly on the water. We didn't have to fish for a long time - the darkness of an August evening fell to the ground, and we had to return home. The boat was hidden in the coastal thickets. Nikolai Ivanovich asked: will I go with him tomorrow to check the gear? I agreed. In the morning, it's still darkwe again made our way along the forest road to the oxbow. When we arrived, the sky was just beginning to brighten.

Unexpected catch - pike and zander

Nikolai Ivanovich went to check the gear, and I ran along the dewy bank, trying to see the overturned circle from afar. Alas, they were not. This was confirmed by the fisherman who returned to the shore. All the crucians were in place, but they "fell asleep". He said that this is the main reason for the failure - the weather was hot, the water in the oxbow warmed up, and the live baits died because of this. And the pike, as experience shows, likes to take live bait. We were consolated then by a few dozen boletus that grew among the pines not far from the coast. We loaded the boat into a van and returned to the village.

And last year Nikolai Ivanovich used almost all his free morning and evening hours. And the year was very successful for him. As they say, fortune turned to face him. Having caught carp for bait in a nearby pond, he sat in a dugout canoe and rowed to the cherished places. I must say, this shuttle has a long history. Back in the early sixties of the last century, Nikolai Ivanovich's father gouged himself a floating craft from a huge aspen. And then, as a teenager, he watched as his father carefully chose wood with a chisel, leaving only the thickness of the sides and the bottom in the log. Then the canoe was turned over the fire, and it spread out from the heat.

Nikolai Ivanovich said that last summer the employees of the "Rybolov-Athlete" magazine sailed along the Berezina on a boat. Seeing him on the boat, they swam and for a long time looked at this creation of human hands without nails and screws, took pictures. They promised to tell about the boat and its owner in their magazine. Because, according to them, they traveled many kilometers along the Dnieper and along the Berezina, and they saw the dugout canoe for the first time. Apparently, the master craftsmen of this business were transferred.

Nikolai Ivanovich has several cherished places on the Berezina. One of them is located opposite the confluence of a small brook-rivulet into the river. Apparently, he endures something that attracts roach, silver bream, bream and other fish, they constantly fall for the bait there. And where there are many small fish, predators always find prey there. And in this place he often anchored his canoe and did not remain without a catch. For bait I used worms, tender "meat" of a pond snail, which is found in shallow backwaters. I used to catch catfish and pikes with the zakidushki equipped with a worm or carp. According to him, over the past year, I caught about three dozen small catfish - from a kilogram or two and more. And when a catfish of six kilograms was caught, which could hardly fit into the net, this tackle had to be altered. Made a new one with a rim diameter of 60 centimeters. This landing net was very useful for Nikolai Ivanovich in his most successful and unusual fishing, but in a different place and on the zherlitsa.

Dried pike head (next to boxes of matches)

The past autumn was successful for fishermen - and at the end of October, and even in November, they could do what they loved, because the ice on the Berezina was still not set, and it was quite warm. Nikolai Ivanovich mainly used girders at this time.

According to explanatory dictionaries, the zherlitsa is a live bait tackle for catching predatory fish, such as pike, pike perch, catfish, burbot, perch. It is a small flyer, very similar to a slingshot, on which the angler neatly winds a thick fishing line with an eight. At one end of the slingshot, a slit is made for the fishing line, in which it is fixed after winding so that in case of pulling the fish can easily unwind, giving the predator a certain freedom of movement (see figure).

This leaves the free end of the line, which is equipped with a sinker and a tee. The length of the free line with a tee depends on the depth of immersion of the live bait, which takes advantage of the tee. The flyer is usually fixed on coastal trees or bushes or on a pole driven into the bottom of the reservoir. Nikolai Ivanovich was fixing his gear on the willows hanging over the river. He set girders at night, baited with crucians caught in the pond, and in the morning he hurried to his cherished place to check the tackle. On them, he caught more than one pike and not one catfish. So, on the day of his most successful and unusual fishing, he sat down in the canoe in the morning and directed him to his zerlits.

Here, perhaps, it is best to give the floor to the fisherman himself: “When I swam up to the bushes, for which I fixed the girder, I realized that the predator had already been caught - all the fishing line, ten meters, had been unwound. He pulled on the end hanging from the bushes and saw something incomprehensible stir in the water. Then I, passing the line along the boat and lifting it, began to make my way to the bushes, where my catch was stirring. A huge mouth of a pike briefly appeared out of the water, then it disappeared into the depths again. I prepared the net and pulled the line again.

When the pike emerged from the water, he brought him under it and with difficulty transferred the catch into the boat. Imagine my surprise when I saw two fish in the landing net at once - a huge pike and a solid pike perch, which she held across her body in her powerful teeth! Once in the canoe, she immediately opened her mouth and freed the pike perch, but it was too late. So I caught two predators at once. As the home weighing showed, the pike pulled 700 g by 10 kg, and the pike perch would also please any angler (see photo), since it weighed 1 kg 400 g! Then I sat in the boat for a long time, coming to my senses and not believing in luck. I tried to understand: how did this happen? I think that the pike perch took live bait in the evening or at night, then, trying to escape, unwound all the fishing line on the gutter. And stood under the bushes.

I was very lucky. The pike grabbed the pike perch, apparently just before my approach to the zander. I know that it usually takes prey across the body, and then swims away to a quieter place, where it begins to turn it headfirst into its mouth. I swam to the bushes in time. If she felt the tension in the line, she would most likely push the zander out, as she did in the boat."

Wife - Anastasia Ivanovna with a record catch

At home Nikolai Ivanovich had a real sensation. Relatives weighed the amazing catch, took pictures with a pike in their hands. The pike perch was fried the next morning, and the pike was butchered and frozen in the refrigerator. Then fish cakes were made from it for the New Year, and the head of the predator was saturated with salt in strong brine and dried. I held this head with its open mouth in my hands - even when it is dried it amazes with its size.

Son Maxim with his father's catch

E. Valentinov, Photo by Maxim Krasichenok