Autumn, fishing techniques for carnivorous fish in fresh water

© Olivier Lalouf

Autumn is here, the leaves are falling, the rains have returned and the temperature is dropping. It's less easy to catch fish unless you're heading in the right direction. Let's take a look at the most profitable fishing techniques.

La perche se prend très bien aux poissons nageurs
Perch can be caught with swimming fish

Perch with swimming fish

The perch is a formidable predator that loves fry and other small fish. As soon as a small swimming fish is presented, it reacts instantly and rises into the water to intercept it. The swim of the lure must be sufficiently demonstrative for this beautiful zebra to intercept it and deliver a powerful strike.

After casting, place the rod in the down position and retrieve. Then, by flicking your wrists to the side so that the lure loses its swimming line, the swimming fish will show its flanks and attract the beautiful zebra fish from afar. As soon as you hook a perch, don't change position but cast again immediately. Living in schools of varying densities, it's not uncommon for the fish to be caught in quick succession.

For the tackle, you'll need a 2.10 m rod with 3 to 10 grams of power and good tip sensitivity. A reel with a 14 to 18 hundredths tip and 3 to 7 cm swimmer fish, depending on the position and depth, will do the trick.

Les brochets succombent facilement aux tournantes
Pikes easily succumb to spinners

Pikelets à la petite tournante

During the last warm days of autumn, the gregarious instinct is reinforced in the fry, who patrol in sometimes immense shoals beneath the surface, high above the shallows and along the edges. This opportunity does not escape the pike, which often selects this type of prey to the exclusion of all others. The logical response to this behavior is to refine your rigs and reduce the size of your lures, a strategy known as downsizing.

A small spinning line brought back to shallow water, especially a minnow model, can bring you some nice fish, provided you use the indispensable fluorocarbon stack to avoid cuts. And don't go overboard with line diameter, which for nylon should be no less than 20 hundredths.

Choose a light casting rod weighing 10 to 30 grams and a reel fitted with 20 to 28-centimetre nylon or 8 to 10-centimetre braid. Fluorocarbon leaders must not be less than 60 hundredths or face immediate punishment.

Les cuillères ondulantes sont des bonbons pour les sandres
Wobbling spoons are pike-perch candy

Pike-perch with rippling spoon from the edge

Pike-perch are very active in November. The young whites of the year are frolicking all around the obstacles and not far from the edges. I'd like to invite you to try out a very pleasant yet little-used technique for pike-perch: spoon fishing from the shore.

It doesn't matter what the spoon is, as long as it's silver-white, unadorned and size 2. To be more precise, if it says Aglia Mepps on it, it's perfect.

Work your lure smoothly at all heights of water without confining yourself to the bottom. Pike-perch aren't always there. Multiply lateral deviations and short releases and fish down to your feet.

Make sure you have a small supply of spoons, as you may lose some when luring a pike.

The equipment will be classic with a tip-action cast, a reel fitted with braid (8 or 12 strands in 8 hundredths) or nylon (16 to 20 hundredths) according to your habits and a fluorocarbon leader in 30 hundredths.

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