Welcome everyone to our lure fishing blog. We will discuss and explore freshwater and saltwater fishing with artificial baits. We will share with you our experiences in this blog.
First of all, pike is probably the most sought-after freshwater fish in Europe. You can fish for pike with all sort of baits, from crankbaits to spinnerbaits, softbaits and many many more. Pike live in many region and varied habitat; wether it’s ponds, lakes, canals or rivers they are very adaptable and widesperead. Pike has very sharp teeth which forces anglers to use cut resistant leader such as steel or heavy gauge fluorocarbon line. It’s a very fine line between cut resistance yet keeping the line thin enough to let the lure enough freedom to move. Overall pike love to hide in heavy structure such as laydowns, bridge piles, drop offs and water tributaries.
The most common technique is swimbait fishing. We will show you how to get started with that easy cast and retrieve technique. The lure is a soft swimbaits rigged on a jig head and work the bait back to you. Just throw it out there, wait until the lure hits the bottom and start your retrieve, let it drop back down to the bottom every now and then.
As the water cools off in the winter, you try your luck with a drop shot rig that works very well in ponds. You can fish slower on the best spots with a slow retrieve. Pike will eat any softbaits such as worms, finesse, creatures, craws and swimbaits.
As a conclusion for pike fishing you can also use hardbaits like crankbaits, jerkbaits, longbill minnows and segmentated swimbaits.
First of all, zander is a light shy fish that doesn’t like bright light. That’s why dark shaded spots and ledges are so good. Most zanders are caught with softbaits on the bottom. It can be rigged on a jighead or with a drop shot rig. They can also be caught with hard baits such as crankbaits or longbill minnow.
Another very efficient technique is metal baits . You can use either blade baits or jigging spoons. These lures cast very well and hug the bottom all along the retrieve.
Fishing for zander is usually best during automn and winter. Baitfish are starting to move deeper in large schools. Therefore we will find zanders deeper around ledges and drop offs when temperatures fall.
That being said, you can perfectly catch zander in the summer. The team at digit-fishing.com does so very successfully.
Maybe zander is not the best at putting a great fight but it’s fascinating and mysterious fish to seek.
First of all sea bass is the most commonly found saltwater fish in Europe. You can catch it from shore or from a boat.
Cast and retrieve : For bank fishing, it’s better to use a longer rod than fishing from a boat. We can use hardbaits such as jerkbait or other long billed minnow. We will focus on estuaries, harbors, jetties, dikes or beaches. For rocky banks soft baits might be better for sea bass.
Vertical fishing : We’ll use most of the the time a soft swimbait. To select the right combination we need to look at the lure shape and jighead weight. The jighead can be shaped like a ball or a fish head. The right size is when you have enough weight to be able to have a good feel for the bottom. We can work the bait in very dynamic manner by pumping it hard or a more gentle and slow cadence for different situation.
Bottom dragging : We can used various softbait such as finesse or swimbaits. The goal is to really stay on the bottom and drag the bait. It will raise a little cloud of sediment sure to attract cruising sea bass. o
Topwater fishing : You can use a stick bait or a popper. Stick baits will be worked with a walking the dog retrieve that imitate a fleeing bait fish. It’s probably the best method to catch sea bass with topwater lures. Popper is great on windy days or when fish are busting baitfish on top.
Light jigging : Much like jigging the focus is on little metal baits called casting jigs. You can fish from shore or on a boat with varied retrieve. These lures work under any weather including strong wind. We can also fish very deep with jigs in rocks or wrecks.
Another method is trolling, which is great for covering vast expanses of water and find active fish efficiently.
Finally we shoudl say that sea bass tend to be found in predictable spots that can easily be located with your depth-finder.
