Donka from a spinning rod for bream. Bottom tackle for bream. Bottom tackle for catfish. How to catch bream. Catching bream in still water with a bottom
Bream, due to its abundance, has been caught by almost every angler at least once. But regularly catching bream is quite difficult because of its caution. At night, schools of bream actively feed and behave more freely. Accordingly, night fishing for bream on a donk is often more effective than daytime fishing. In addition, when fishing at night, as a rule, larger specimens are caught.
Fishing for bream with bottom gear
Habitats
Bream can be found in most large and medium-sized rivers, reservoirs and large lakes. Schools of bream stick to deep places with a slightly silted or clayey bottom. Bream comes close to the shore during spawning and occasionally at night for feeding. The exception is holes near the steep banks of fast-flowing rivers. In such holes the current slows down, which attracts bream.
Bream enters small rivers only for spawning, after which they migrate to their permanent habitats.
Biting calendar by fishing season
Fishing for bream with bottom gear is possible from the moment water bodies are cleared of ice until the new freeze-up. But bream actively bites from mid-spring to the end of October with a break during spawning:
- Spring. Active biting of bream begins during its spawning run. The pre-spawning biting period is quite short, in some reservoirs it can be only a few days. When the water warms up to a temperature of 10–12 ⁰C, bream spawning begins. During the spawning period and for some time after it, the bream does not bite. The bite usually resumes at the same time as the bird cherry blossoms, and lasts for about 2–3 weeks. In the spring, catching bream on a donk is most effective.
- Summer. At the beginning of summer, the post-spawning feeding of bream continues. As the water warms up, bream begins to be caught at night. From the end of June to mid-August, the bite gradually weakens, and in the last weeks of summer it begins to intensify.
- Autumn. Throughout September and most of October, bream eats away in preparation for winter. The end of active bream biting usually coincides with the end of Indian summer. From this moment on, the bream begins to go to wintering pits. He still continues to feed, but his bite becomes more and more capricious and cautious.
Bream fishing in autumn
Design of bottom gear for catching bream
Bream can be caught using any bottom tackle - from a hook to a carp rod, but the optimal choice in most cases will be a feeder - tackle specially designed for bottom fishing.
Feeder tackle consists of a rod with replaceable sensitive tips, a spinning reel with braided fishing line and a feeder assembly with a leash and a hook. If there is no feeder, it can be replaced with a spinning rod, but the effectiveness of such tackle for bream will be much lower: it is inferior to the feeder both in sensitivity and in casting range, especially when fishing in the current.
In some cases, at night it is better to use a rubber band for catching bream - a donka with a rubber shock absorber. The elastic band is effective for night fishing at a short distance from the shore, at depths of up to three meters in rivers with slow and medium currents. In such places, its advantages are fully realized - the bait is guaranteed to be fed to the same place, and there are no splashes from the thrown feeder, which can alert the bream. The elastic band also allows you to use several attachments at the same time, as it is equipped with several leashes. One or more spring feeders are installed on the working part of the elastic band, which must be firmly fixed.
Rod
It is better to choose a mid-class rod with a length of 3.6–3.9 meters with a test weight of up to 90 g. This rod allows you to cast feeders weighing 30–70 g, it is most used for night fishing, and allows you to cope with quite large fish. The length of the rod makes it possible to quickly lift the equipment from the bottom to the upper layers of water to avoid snagging.
Fishing rod for bream
Coil
A reel size 4000–4500 is suitable for this type of fishing. At the same time, the requirements for the quality of line laying are higher than for daytime fishing. If the shedding of line rings causes a beard to form during the day, this will result in some wasted time in detangling. When fishing at night, untangling even a small beard from a braided cord is quite problematic.
When fishing for bream at night, a catfish or carp may bite, so it is better if the reel has a baitrunner.
What to choose: fishing line or braided cord?
For bottom fishing, it is better to use braided lines. Their main advantage is high sensitivity. The second advantage of braided lines is that they are less susceptible to currents. Most often in feeder fishing, cords with a diameter of 0.12–0.16 mm are used.
Monofilament fishing lines are used for bottom fishing for bream at short (up to 15–20 m) distances in reservoirs without current. Another niche for using monofilament is bottom gear, in which casting gear and landing fish is carried out without the help of a rod - a cast and a rubber band. The use of fairly thick lines protects the angler's hands from cuts.
Hooks
For bottom fishing for bream at night, it is better to use feeder hooks of different sizes: from 12 to 8 according to the international classification. It is better to use hooks from well-known manufacturers. A successful example of a hook for donk fishing is the products of the Japanese company Gamakatsu F22 series. Their peculiarity lies in the shape of the hook bend, in which the sting is directed inward, and the hooking axis coincides with the direction of pull of the fishing line. Of course, you can use hooks from other manufacturers, the main thing is that the hook hooks and holds the fish well.
Hook Gamakatsu F22 No. 10, 25 pieces
Equipment installation options
The many installations of feeder equipment that are used by fishermen can be reduced to the following basic options:
Catching bream on a bottom with a feeder is a method that has been proven for decades. Today, gear is the most budget-friendly solution that allows a novice fisherman to count on a decent catch.
Where to fish?
Bream bites well on bottom in lakes and reservoirs with standing water. However, the tackle can also be used when fishing in rivers, using heavier feeders and viscous bait that will not be instantly washed away by the current.
What does the tackle consist of?
How to make a donka for bream? The design of the device is quite simple and consists of:
- from the rod;
- coils;
- fishing lines;
- hook;
- feeders;
- bite alarm.
The entire set can be purchased at any market or in a specialized tackle store. If you really want to, a donk with a bream feeder can easily be assembled from long-abandoned fishing supplies.
Rod
To prepare the donk, you will first have to choose a reliable fishing rod. The best choice is a light and durable fiberglass spinning rod that can withstand the weight of the feeder filled with bait. A good option would be an old fishing rod or a spinning rod with a broken tip, which will keep the weight of the equipment from 40 to 100 grams.
Coil
It is recommended to give preference to inertia-free models that can accommodate more than 100 m of fishing line. It is advisable to purchase a reel with a friction brake. When fishing with a donk, most of the time the fisherman has to quietly wait for a bite. Therefore, a cheap, medium-sized model is suitable as a reel.
fishing line
There is no particular difference in thickness when fishing with a donk. A fishing line with a cross section of about 0.2-0.35 mm is sufficient. The need to fish in strong currents may force you to change the fishing line. The dependence here is obvious. The stronger the flow, the thinner the fishing line should be chosen.
Feeder
Donka for bream in the summer must be placed with a feeder, which at the same time acts as a container for bait and plays the role of a sinker. It is better to give preference to products that will reliably hold the bait even in the strongest currents.
Bream can be caught on a donk in calm waters with a feeder of almost any geometry. However, to hold the gear at the bottom of a stormy river, you will need a heavy square or triangular structure.
Hook
Professionals advise choosing a fairly small hook for bream, which can be easily disguised with bait or hidden in bait. However, what is good for catching small fish is completely ineffective when hooking large ones.
To find the golden mean, just use the following recommendations:
- If bloodworms are used as bait, the best option is hooks size 14-16.
- It is convenient to place maggots several at a time on hooks No. 10-14.
- To catch bream on the bottom, when pearl barley or corn is used as bait, you should take hooks ranging in size from 8 to 14.
- For worms, products with long sharp shanks No. 6-10 are suitable.
Bite alarm
To receive timely information about bites, it is better to use a small bell or electronic device. Much depends on personal preferences and financial capabilities.
Modifications
It is convenient to catch bream on a donk in reservoirs with standing water if you use several alternative tackle options:
- The bait is used for fishing close to the shore. A relatively short piece of fishing line is sufficient for rigging. The sinker can either be located at the end of the tackle or move freely on a rubber stopper. This type of donk is attached to a peg placed on the shore, and the bite is determined by the movement of the bell.
- The elastic band allows you to quickly catch significant amounts of fish if there is a good bite. A fishing line is attached to the sinker with an elastic band, on which leashes with hooks in an amount of up to 10 pieces are placed. Like the zakidushka donka, it is attached to the shore.
Advantages
Why is the donka still in demand among avid anglers, despite the advent of more advanced devices? This can be explained by the obvious advantages of such gear, among which it is worth noting the possibility of fishing at an impressive distance, excellent bite control, fishing in still and stormy waters while simultaneously feeding fish.
However, there are a number of restrictions that prevent the effective use of donkeys for catching bream. First of all, it is not recommended to cast tackle in areas saturated with vegetation and snags. The device is absolutely useless when catching fish that live in mountain rivers or feed at the surface of the water.
Fishing Features
To catch bream on a donk, you will have to work a little. To begin with, bait is mixed, which is generously irrigated with water and soaked for half an hour. The depth in the selected area is measured. For this purpose, it is convenient to use special marker floats.
Starting feeding is carried out, which consists of performing a series of successive casts of a fishing rod with a feeder. As soon as the tackle touches the surface of the bottom, a sharp hook is made and the line is wound back.
After feeding, they move directly to fishing. The feeder is filled more densely with bait, the equipment is thrown in, the fishing line is tightened, a bite alarm is installed, and the rod is placed on a stand. If after 20 minutes there is complete silence, you should re-throw the gear to a new place, repeating the above sequence of actions.
My opinion is that even on medium or large rivers, in lakes, catching bream is more promising with a donka, which has more advantages over fishing with a float rod, especially if there is a current or strong wind.
In general, the most popular are two options for catching bream on the bottom with feeding in the current. This is stationary fishing, and the second option is fishing on a moving bottom, when a feeder carried by the current distributes the bait evenly over a large area.
When you fish stationary, the fish gather at the feeding point, which is attracted by an abundant train of bait. It is precisely with this type of fishing that you can catch the largest specimens of fish that lead the school and are the first to approach the bait. Feeders from sixty to one hundred grams are used. But with a running bottom, bites will be more frequent, but large specimens will not always be caught. In this case, the feeders are about forty grams, and you must also have sensitive gear to see the touches of the fish, even though the feeder moves in the current. When fishing this way, set the leash from thirty to fifty centimeters long.
The bait is usually made of bloodworms, red worms, maggot larvae, but the fish may also prefer steamed pearl barley, peas, wheat, and lupine. So you need to experiment. I recommend using vanillin, bitter almonds, and hemp as an attractant.
You need to remember that if your bait is in the water column, or just above the bottom, then the fish may be wary, at this moment it will take the bait with more caution, but the bream will take the bait lying on the bottom more boldly, regardless of the thickness of the fishing line and hook size. After all, he can mistake a fishing line that lies at the bottom for garbage, algae roots lying at the bottom, or tree branches.
Do not forget that bream loves large bait and it will confidently take it on the bottom if you have a long leash that will not interfere with the bite, its free movement should be in a current of up to half a meter, and up to forty centimeters in a standing reservoir, as well as the presence groundbait. Without bait, it is very difficult to get bream to approach baited hooks.
And, of course, I wish every fisherman: no tail, no scales!
How to catch bream with bottom rods
Donka is an excellent tackle for catching bream. It allows you to cast long distances and catch large bream, which prefer to be further from the shore. And it can bring a lot of pleasure from fishing. After all, bream is a fairly large river fish, reaching a weight of more than 6-7 kilograms. Often, of course, you come across much smaller specimens, but bream weighing 0.3-3 kg is far from uncommon and fighting with such specimens is always very interesting.
Bream, like many other large fish, requires a special approach to the choice of tackle and equipment. This article is devoted to the choice of bottom gear for catching bream. If you choose the right tackle, then catching bream will be easy and relaxed, and, of course, bring even more pleasure from fishing. Let's find out what kind of donkey should be used for catching bream.
The choice of a donkey for catching bream should be based on fishing conditions, taking into account the strength of the fish, ease of fishing, etc. Of course, you must understand that even though the donka is not a particularly active tackle and most of the time it just lies on stands, but still, in order to make casting and landing fish enjoyable, choose light and comfortable rods that will cope perfectly with and at the same time they will not cause inconvenience when fishing.
Fortunately for us, you can buy a good donka for little money. Of course, when you buy several gears at once, this is financially significant for many fishermen, but it’s enough to start with one and gradually increase your arsenal. Usually they catch 3-4 donkeys at once. Well, let's get down to choosing and look at the main points.
Rod selection
A fishing rod for bream has no special requirements. You can use any length of rod that is comfortable for you to fish with. A rod of both two and three meters in length is perfect. Personally, I prefer three-meter rods. They allow you to cast longer, and in general, I just like to fish with long sticks.
Old spinning rods are also quite suitable for fishing for bream. Instead of spinners, you tie the tackle with a feeder or with a sinker and hooks and the spinning rod turns into an excellent bait.
The only thing you really need to pay attention to is the rod test. It should be designed for a heavy weight or a feeder with bait. Usually a rod with a weight of 40 to 100 grams is enough. Otherwise, if you choose a rod with less test, it may not withstand the load when casting and fail.
Coil selection
The reel needs to be inertialess. Of course, it is better to take a high-quality reel, at least three bearings, with a good gear ratio. Using such a reel is pleasant and reliable. But I could easily catch bream using inexpensive single-bearing reels. In principle, they cope with their task quite successfully and, in my opinion, would be ideal for a beginner. Explain why? Because when I started with cheap donkey reels, they seemed quite normal to me, and when I switched to expensive and high-quality ones, only then did I feel the difference. If you immediately buy an expensive reel, you will no longer experience all the charm of this transition from cheap to expensive reels :)
Well, of course, I don’t know your financial capabilities, and if you can easily buy 3 good fishing rods at once, fully equipped with reels and other accessories, then, of course, there is no point in buying cheap. But if your budget for your favorite activity is limited, do not rush to buy expensive equipment. There's more to come.
Line selection
The next thing we need to choose is the fishing line that we will wind on the reel of our donka. Here you should start from a fishing line with a diameter of 0.25 mm. A little more, a little less doesn’t make much of a difference, 0.25 is the golden mean.
You can also use braided wire of a thinner diameter, but it is much more expensive than regular monofilament fishing line. That's why I don't consider it.
There are no special requirements for choosing fishing line for bream. The main thing is that it works perfectly both when fishing in still water and in the current.
Important! In a current, you should use a fishing line of a smaller diameter, then it will be less subject to the force of the current and will not sail as much.
Selection of equipment
Equipment for catching bream can be of two types:
- with a sinker in the form of a feeder (spring);
- with a regular sinker.
Both equipment options are quite functional and each of them is popular with one or another fisherman. But a rig with a feeder is more suitable for catching small and medium bream. Such feeders are sold in any fishing store, fully assembled with hooks and leashes. Typically the feeder is equipped with three hooks. All that remains is the tackle is ready for fishing.
Be careful! Often the hooks on purchased feeders are tied poorly and become untied from the leash at the slightest tension. Therefore, before casting the tackle, it is necessary to check the reliability of the hooks and, if necessary,.
Another nuance of a purchased feeder is the quality and size of the hooks. Often you have to replace them with others - sharper and...
It is better to fish using equipment with a regular lead sinker. Such a sinker will be less alarming to large fish. Fishing with this rig should only be done on one hook with a hair rig. It is necessary to feed the fishing spot separately using a slingshot for throwing bait, pour the required amount into the intended fishing spot in a boat or swim in a boat.
With such equipment with hair, large bream, if of course there is one in the reservoir, is caught quite often, and in addition to bream, you can catch many other large fish, such as, and others.
Catching bream with a classic donka, which came to us from the Soviet era, is very popular and not too expensive. This kind of fishing is suitable for going out for barbecues, as an auxiliary activity, and for full-time fishing. In addition, the donka allows you to use modern types of gear.
Donka classic: what is it?
Bottom fishing rod is one of the most famous and ancient methods of fishing. In its original form, it is simply a fishing hook with bait, tied together with a fairly heavy sinker on a fishing line, which is thrown into the water to catch fish. In modern fishing, such tackle is also used and is known as “zakidushka”.
When they talk about a bottom fishing rod in the modern sense, they usually mean something else. This is a tackle with a rod and reel that performs the same role as a baitcaster - to deliver the load and bait to the bottom and pull out the fish. Doing this with their help is much more convenient than throwing and pulling out by hand. The fishing pace increases several times, as a result, with an active bite, you can catch more fish. And such tackle gets tangled less. There are many other advantages to using a rod and reel. This includes the ability to use thin fishing lines, lighter sinker weights, effective hooking with a rod, and a number of others.
Bottom fishing gear is more effective than many other gears. When fishing from the shore for this fish, no other method can compete with it, and it only provides several advantages to alternative types of fishing. Of course, each body of water has its own characteristics, and in some places bream may bite better on a float.
Fishing with an English feeder
The feeder, in fact, is a more advanced version of the donkey, when the industry met the anglers halfway and produced a lot of specialized gear. As a result, a new type of fishing developed from the usual donkey in England. In the USSR, consumer production was not so willing to accommodate people, and as a result, donka was preserved in the form in which it was originally abroad. Many people still fish with this kind of gear, and I must say, very, very successfully. Donka is a spinning rod adapted for bottom fishing, which was produced by enterprises and was more suitable for such fishing than for spinning.
What is a classic bottom fishing rod? Typically this is a fiberglass rod, 1.3 to 2 meters long. It has a fairly large test and is designed for casting heavy bait, usually up to 100 grams in weight. This rod is equipped with an inertial reel with a drum diameter of 10 to 15 cm. An inertial reel requires experience in handling, in particular, the ability to slow it down with your finger at the right moment so that there are no beards. A fishing line with a diameter of 0.2 to 0.5 mm is wound onto the reel, usually 0.3-0.4 is used.
The fishing line is monofilament, since casting with inertia and cord is problematic. At the slightest underholding, the loops come off, and the cord in this case has the peculiarity of clinging to the reel handles, rod rings, sleeve buttons, which makes fishing with it and the inertia impossible. You have to twist the brake on the reel, which sharply reduces the casting range. Therefore, for those who want to use a line on a donk, there is a direct path to using feeder tackle with modern inertial reels.
Expert opinion
Ask a question to an expertA weight and a pair of leashes with hooks are attached to the end of the fishing line. Usually the weight is placed at the end of the main line, and the leashes are attached above it. It is usually not possible to attach more than two hooks, since in this case you have to either sacrifice or increase the overhang of the fishing line when casting, which is not always convenient. On bottom fishing rods for catching bream, wire mounts are often used, which allow you to increase the number of hooks used to four - two on the mount, two higher on the main line.
Generally speaking, increasing the number of hooks on the tackle is a common method for bottom fishermen when trying to catch bream. The probability of a bite on several hooks is always greater than on one, albeit disproportionately. However, with a large number of hooks, you have to put up with the fact that they will get tangled. Here it is worth choosing the golden mean and there is no need to chase too much for quantity. Usually two hooks are more than enough.
The feeder is not used very often when fishing with a donk. The fact is that the evolution of feeders led to the appearance of a classic feeder feeder with a loaded bottom, to. And for the donkey, the classic is catching bream on a spring, a feeder that does not hold food very well and gives a lot of it away when it falls. The bream gets it in small quantities, but most of it is sprayed in the water column and attracts schools of roach to the fishing spot, which prevent the bream from being the first to be hooked.
This is another reason why it is almost never used when fishing, or only a feeder feeder is used. The spring of the feed reaches the bottom very little in the current, but flies and holds the bottom much worse compared to a conventional sinker. Of the latter, a spoon is used most often on donk. They place it for reasons of ease of fishing: the spoon takes off better and does not catch grass and snags when pulled out, and also goes well along the rocky bottom.
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Cormac and steel
Still, of the many options for bottom gear that fishermen used in the USSR, a bottom using cormak and rimmed with steel was most suitable for catching bream. Cormac is a very large feeder. It was used to deliver a large amount of food to the bottom at a time. As you know, a school of bream stays for a long time only where there is enough food for it, and the likelihood of a bite in such a place will be higher. In feeder fishing, to create such conditions, starting feeding is used, precisely throwing several feeders at the fishing point.
Donka does not allow you to accurately throw several times in the same place. Therefore, the goal is achieved by using one cast of bait, but of a sufficiently large volume. The feeder for such complementary feeding was usually made of metal mesh and filled with rather thick porridge. It weighed about 200-300 grams together with the sinker, which often led to breakage and overload of the rod. However, if you use very rough crocodiles, which are still on sale now, you can throw such equipment with them quite safely, without the risk of breakage.
Steel is steel wire that was wound onto a reel instead of fishing line. It must be cold-drawn wire, preferably coated, so that it can slide freely through the rings. Wire from a semi-automatic machine, which could easily be obtained at that time, is excellent for this purpose.
The wire used had a smaller cross-section than nylon fishing line - it was possible to set it to 0.25 mm and get the same characteristics as on 0.5 fishing line. In addition, the wire made it possible to cast very far, since it was very weakly blown into an arc and, due to its smaller cross-section, slowed down the load less in flight. And tangling of loops with wire equipment was much less common than with fishing line, which was ideal for inertial loops. Such wire, wound on a reel and moistened with machine oil to prevent corrosion, was called “steel.” Craftsmen threw such tackle over record distances - up to one hundred meters! Fishing with it was more effective than with a rod equipped with a nylon line, but the scope of application was limited only to bottom fishing, and there were a lot of nuances in such equipment.
In modern conditions there is no need for steel. All its advantages can be obtained using a modern cord and spinning reels. Cormac is also a relic of the past. Feeder gear easily solves the problem of large feeding, even more than feeder can provide. But at the same time it is much more convenient to use.
How to catch bream on a donk
Fishing is usually carried out on the current. At the selected location, the fisherman places from two to five bottom fishing rods. Fishing for one is rarely used, and fishing rules in many regions do not allow fishing for more than five. But where it is allowed, you can see a dozen. Bells are used as bite alarms on donks. They are quite easy to use and are most effective when fishing with several fishing rods, as they allow you to register a bite even in the dark, without the use of fireflies.
In fact, those who claim that you can confuse which fishing rod is ringing are wrong. In complete darkness, a person can easily find the source of a sound, and a firefly is not required. This is how auditory perception works, and most people with good hearing do not have problems with it.
Expert opinion
Federation of Fishing Sports of the Moscow Region
Ask a question to an expertThere is no point in placing fishing rods close to each other, since in this case there is a greater chance that a fish will bite on one of the fishing rods in a large area than on all of them in a small area. As a result, there are about eight baited hooks thrown into the water and a section of shore about thirty meters long occupied by the fisherman. The bite on a bottom fishing rod largely depends on chance.
However, an angler who knows this body of water and the habits of the fish has great advantages. Bream usually visits the same areas, so there are places where it bites, and there are places where it does not occur. In addition, based on past experience, the fisherman will identify such points on an unfamiliar body of water. Of secondary importance is the choice of nozzle, equipment and installations, correct tension and adjustment of the gear.
Modern tackle
In the modern understanding of the fisherman, donka is rather a relic of the past. Increasingly, feeder-type spinning rods and feeder rods are used for bottom fishing. Fishing with a feeder rod without a feeder is called donka by many, but this is not so. The feeder is a much more sporting tackle; there is not such a share of luck in biting fish as in fishing with a donk, and the experience of the fisherman decides much more.