In our country, for many years it was believed that a person fishing with a net is a poacher and needs to be punished. Great changes have occurred over the past decades. A fisherman who wants to use nets for fishing can take permission and use this method on water bodies quite calmly. All fishing gear is legally sold in specialized stores.
Winter net preparation
Winter fishing attracts many fishermen with a tricky procedure. In the cold season, fish moves from the coast to the middle part of the reservoir. She is less active than in spring. If you are going fishing, you should carefully select equipment, gear and feed.
In winter, they catch fish with nets, but not very often. With this fishing method, there are features that must be considered. How to fish under the ice with a net will be discussed below.
When installing gear, take into account the specificity of the reservoir, namely the topography of the bottom, and it is under the ice and hidden from the eyes of the fisherman.
Seat selection
When choosing it, you should pay attention to the following:
- The pond should be a large lake or a high-water wide river.
- Install the network closer to the middle of a river, lake or other body of water. Fish in winter is at a depth, escaping from the cold, where there is food in the mud. Closer to spring, nets, on the contrary, are installed near the shore where the fish move, so that it is easier to breathe oxygen-saturated water.
- At the bottom of ponds should not be snags, trees and other objects.
- In the selected area, the ice surface is cleared of snow.
Ice hole preparation
The place where the net will fish is selected and prepared, it is time to drill an ice hole:
- Markings are marked on the cleared ice, usually two of them, which are equal to the length of the net.
- In the marked places, two ice-holes are made, one meter long, half a meter wide. Their shape should resemble a rectangle. The name of such an ice hole was "lane." Ice is cut down with the help of an ice pick or chainsaw.
- Additionally, two holes are drilled between the wormwoods after 3 m from each other.
- The edges of the ice-hole widen a bit and gently trim it, so as not to damage the network in the future.
Additional devices
Preparatory work is done, it remains to put the network. To do this, you will first need:
- pole 10 m long (distance between lanes);
- gon (otherwise called a rope), about 60 m;
- sewed (or two sticks) two meters long in order to correct the net in the holes.
Network Installation Methods
Net fishing in winter provides several ways to set gear. Some fishermen cut a hole in a shape resembling a large rectangle, and hunt with a net, like in summer. It is convenient, but unsafe, especially when thin ice. Let's consider in more detail how to fish in the net on the river and how to set up under the ice network.
First way
A pole with a rope is brought into the lane. A load is tied to its lower part, and a rope to the upper part. The pole is moved under the ice, adjusting its position in the intermediate wells.
One fisherman tucks the net under the ice, and the other draws a rope from the side of the pole. In the intermediate wells, the passage of the pole is observed. From the last lane the pole is pulled out and tied to sticks, which are laid across the holes. To avoid freezing the net to ice, polyfoam is tied to a selection from above.
It’s hard and difficult to choose a wet net with fish from the water. When setting up new networks, a prerequisite is their dryness. Net fishing on the river allows you to not drill extra holes. The pole will float with the stream. When fishing on the first ice, the progress of the net can be observed through it by tying a foam buoy to the tackle. Instead of knots, carabiners are installed on the gear - this will facilitate the work.
Second way
5-7 square holes with a side length of 0.5 m are cut. A wire is used instead of a pole. A thick rope coming from the net is tied to it and dragged under the ice. In water, the network itself straightens out. The elongated end of the wire is attached to the stick and fixed on the back wall of the hole.
Third way
A few square holes are made with a side of 0.5 m. In the first lane, a rope with a tied load is lowered and pulled through each subsequent hole with sticks with hooks. The ends of the ropes from the last and first holes are knotted. A network is attached to the upper part of the obtained ring and, sorting the rope, is lowered into the water. For greater activity, fish are pounded on ice with a tin can.
Torpedo fishing
Catching fish under the ice with a net becomes less time consuming using a device called a torpedo. This is a metal cone device that helps a fisherman pull a rope with fishing gear under the ice. It can be used when the thickness of the ice does not exceed one meter. In this case, the identification signals of the device are visible through the ice. It weighs only one kilogram, which allows you to take it with you for winter fishing. For its use in ice, two holes are made, in one of which a torpedo will be launched, and in the other on the surface.
The device consists of a hollow cylinder having:
- compartment with eight batteries;
- two bulbs that signal the movement of gear;
- two wheels with sharp teeth clinging to the surface of the ice when moving.
Net fishing in winter is implemented according to a single method. The main thing to do is to put the gear. Then you should wait for the fish to get tangled in the net, swimming to the bait.
While waiting, it is recommended that you monitor the traps from time to time. It is very difficult to put the gear alone. Net fishing is a group hunt.
How to make a “scarf”
Basically, fishermen with trepidation belong to winter fishing and experiment using different gear and trying different fishing methods. Sometimes they use a “scarf”. It has proven itself when used in the first half of winter hunting and at the end of winter fishing. Make it easy:
- An isosceles triangle is cut from a fishing net with cells from 2 to 5 cm. The size of the cells is selected depending on the size of the fish that they plan to catch.
- On the base of the resulting triangle, fix a metal rod or thick wire that will serve as a sinker.
- The rope is pulled through a loop made at the top of the triangle. Using it, the tackle is lowered into a pond and raised. The sides are sewn with kapron thread
Catching fish on the scarf
For a good bite, fish should be fed. To do this, prepare food yourself or buy ready-made food in a specialized store. In winter, fish is at a depth and hides in pits, so it must be lowered to the bottom. The bait must be of good quality and not crumble before it drops to its destination:
- Immerse the kerchief under water.
- After dipping the kerchief, the rope is fixed on the ice surface using a cross stick.
- The hole is masked with brushwood and snow in order to protect the fish from the rays of the sun and noise.
In winter, in places where roach and perch are found, “scarves” are catching tackle, especially on the first ice, when the fish is still very active, and in spring thaws.
How to fish with a net on an elastic band?
The tackle appeared recently, correctly it is called a network with a rubber shock absorber, and there are almost no differences from catching a donkey with a shock absorber.
The heavy load, to which the rubber thread is attached, the fisherman throws into the pond. The gum, gradually shrinking, winds a fixed mesh into the water, which is planted on two cords: floating and cargo. The network does not participate in casting. The gum and fishing line are interconnected by two metal carabiners.
After throwing, the carbines are unfastened and attached to the loops that are located at the ends of the pontoon cord. The weight of the carabiners is balanced by two foam floats that support the network in water in the form of a rectangle.
The mesh size of the net is directly dependent on what kind of fish they are going to catch. The network has a height of 1.5 meters and a length of 7 m if thrown from the shore.
There is another design where instead of a cargo and pontoon cord, a kapron thread is used. Vertical rails stretch the network, and horizontally - the tension of the fishing line and gum.
The gear made by the second method has less resistance when drawn into a pond. This makes it possible to use longer, up to 20 m, networks. They are used only in stagnant waters, because any current bends the slats to the bottom.
Fishing with a small net gives a rich catch only to those who know the body of water and the habits of the fish that live in it. You can use the network and large sizes, but in this case, the elastic should be 4 times longer, and the cargo should be thrown from the boat.
In shallow reservoirs, cargo is sometimes not used. In this case, on the contrary, a rubber shock absorber is tied to a wire ring that is worn on a stake driven into the shore. With this method, it does not break off when the cargo is pulled out of the reservoir. In other cases, they put a small piece of fishing line, the reliability of which is half the stability of the rubber shock absorber, between the load and the rubber. But this measure does not protect the shock absorber from tearing every time.
The fact that the fish got lost in the net, the bell will report. It makes no sense to leave the tackle unattended, since one fish caught can confuse the net and the rest will not get there.
Fishing with a net with an elastic band is very convenient in small ponds located near large cities where there is a concentration of fishermen.
Network Care
Networks made from even the most advanced materials lose their strength for three reasons:
- physical - temperature difference, load, ultraviolet rays;
- chemical - from decomposition of fish scales and mucus;
- Microbiological - a dead fish that stays in the nets for a long time, uncleaned remains, damaged gear.
Experienced fishermen say that fish go reluctantly into unclean nets, and in warm places in places where there is no current, they don’t go at all. Networks of linen and cotton threads are most susceptible to severe pollution, nylon and monofilament networks are considered the most resistant to impurities.
Net fishing will be successful if it is checked at least twice a day. With a small amount of fish caught in the net, fishermen often get it without pulling the tackle ashore. After 4 days, the tackle should be removed on land, carefully cleaned from all sewage and rinsed in running clean water.
Fishermen from Karelia recommend to smoke nets from kapron with smoking branches of spruce. They claim that catches from this increase dramatically.
After the end of the fishing season, the net is dried in a place protected from direct sunlight. Tidy fishermen, before removing the equipment for long-term storage, wash them with soap. After drying, the network is folded so that the next season you can quickly prepare it for work.
So we looked at how to fish with a net. A variety of methods and a large number of fish species predetermined the appearance of many types of nets and methods for their installation. They can be placed near the bottom, along it or at an angle, at a certain depth and at the surface of the reservoir.