Features of fishing with nets for certain types of fish. Fishing with a net: tips Mesh size for which fish

Crucian carp baked in ash As has already been said, crucian carp are absolutely not suitable for fish soup, and if you really want to taste them right on the shore of a reservoir, it is best to bake the fish over a fire. Fish (the same size as for frying) are not scaled , just gutted and washed. Place

Crucian carp with mushrooms, baked in foil If you bake crucian carp not on the shore, but at home, you can make the taste of the previous dish much more refined. Peel the mushrooms (preferably champignons or porcini), rinse well in running water and leave to drain. Finely chop the onion and fry until

Crucian carp stewed with onions Peel the crucian carp (moderate size, up to half a kilogram), gut it, rinse well and add salt. Cut the onion into rings and fry in vegetable oil, lightly salting. Stuff the crucian carp with fried onions and place them in a deep

Stuffed crucian carp, baked in the oven. Remove scales from large crucian carp and cut off the fins with scissors, being careful not to damage the skin. Trim the skin at the head and tail and remove it with a “stocking”. Gut and wash the fish. Remove all the pulp, and boil the bones and fins in a small

Compared to amateur fishing nets, which are represented in Russia by dozens of names (Chameleon, Corona, Barracuda, Neptune, Vimba, Meridian, Crystal and many other names and brands, not to mention Chinese ones), nets for professional fishing, intended for coastal sea fishing, as well as fishing in inland waters of Russia, are piecemeal and are presented on the Russian market mainly by Japanese nets CHAMELEON PROFI.

Manufacturer of networks CHAMELEON PROFI

These nets are directly manufactured and equipped in Japan at the plant of MOMOI FISHING, a world leader in the production of net fabrics (the company is over 100 years old). CHAMELEON PROFI networks embody the basic operating principle of MOMOI FISHING - high quality and accessibility to fishermen, as well as compliance with the high standards of Japanese fishing gear.

Purpose of CHAMELEON PROFI networks

These nets are good for catching such fish as: chum salmon, pink salmon, masu salmon, coho salmon, sockeye salmon, chinook salmon, mykiss, salmon, salmon, nelma, muksun, taimen, as well as for commercial fishing of any large and strong fish. For example, they have proven themselves well when fishing for pike perch on Lake Ladoga.

The basis of CHAMELEON PROFI networks

The basis of any network is the network fabric. The diameter (thickness) of the monofilament thread (fishing line) in the fabrics used is 0.52 mm. In recent years, multi-monofilament thread (twisted line) 0.20x6 has also been used. For the production of PROFI fishing nets, we use CHAMELEON net fabrics from the Japanese concern Momoi Fishing Net Mfg Co., Ltd (www.momoi.co.jp), which is a world leader in the production of net fabrics from monofilament and multi-monofilament (twisted fishing line) thread, as well as nylon ( nylon) thread. The production of Chameleon mesh fabrics is certified by the international quality standard ISO 90002. This is truly Japanese quality!

According to reviews from Russian fishermen, Chameleon fishing line and nylon nets, in terms of their characteristics, are currently the best among the nets available on the modern Russian market.

Color (painting) of networks CHAMELEON PROFI

The color of the net fishing line is gray (smoky). It should be noted here that MOMOI FISHING has patented a unique “Chameleon” coating, which can significantly reduce the visibility of the netting in the water and increase catchability by 15-20%.

Features of CHAMELEON PROFI networks

Features of Chameleon PROFI fishing nets made from fishing line are as follows:

• double knot of mesh fabric;
• thermal fixation of network nodes;
• special coating that reduces the visibility of the net in water;
• monofilament thread of increased strength;
• resistance of the mesh fabric to UV radiation and sea water;
• high resistance to tearing and wear;
• equipment - single or double Danline cord.

PROFI networks are equipped with a manual method (method of landing on a flint).

Upper selection (floating cord equipped with floats) of CHAMELEON PROFI nets

With a network height of 4.5 m: The top pick is equipped with L-100 floats using Danline 6.0 mm single twist line or Danline 2x4.0 mm double twist line. The distance between the L-100 floats in both cases is 1.6 m, and each float is additionally fixed on the selection. L-100 floats have a buoyancy of 100 g. and are used at depths up to 50 m.

With a network height of 5.0m and 6.0m: The top pick-up is equipped with N-22 floats using Danline 2x5.0 mm or 2x4.5 mm double twist cord. Double Danline cord with different twist directions (S and Z) gives additional strength, perfect balance and eliminates twisting of the picks.

The distance between N-22 floats for fishing nets with a height of 5.0 m and 6.0 m is 1.9 m and 1.6 m, respectively. N-22 floats have a buoyancy of 290 g and are used at depths of up to 50 m.

Equipping fishing gear with N-22 floats is a traditional way of equipping fishing nets in Japan and the Far East.

Floats L-100 and N-22 are made of synthetic rubber at the plant of the Japanese company MOMOI FISHING. They have high strength and low hygroscopicity, and are resistant to sea water and ultraviolet radiation. They can be used at great depths.

Some PROFI fishing nets, instead of the L-100 float, are equipped with a Y-8 float, which is similar in shape to the L-100 float, but is made of rubber, which allows the net to be used at a depth of up to 150 m.

The design of the upper selection of PROFI nets has a long service life (up to 10 years), so it can be repeatedly used in the manufacture of new fishing nets. Reusing a floating net reduces the cost of a new fishing net by up to 20%.

Depending on the type of equipment of PROFI fishing nets, the lower selection consists of single (type 1 equipment) or double (type 2) Danline cord.

These two types have no fundamental differences in use and are chosen by fishermen depending on their preferences.

Type 1. The bottom harness consists of a single Danline 6.0mm twist cord. With this type of bottom harness, fishing nets are made with the following heights and lengths:

• Height 4.5 m; length 30 m.
• Height 5.0 m; length 50 m.
• Height 6.0 m; length 50 m.

Type 2. The bottom line consists of a double Danline cord 2x3.5 mm and 2x4.0 mm depending on the size of the fishing net:

• Net height 4.5 m; length 30 m: bottom pick-up - double twisted cord Danline 3.5 mm
• Network height 5.0 m; length 50 m: bottom pick-up - double twisted cord Danline 4.0 mm
• Network height 6.0 m; length 50 m: bottom pick-up - double twisted cord Danline 4.0 mm

Since danline cord of neutral buoyancy is used as the bottom line, therefore, before setting the net, it is necessary to load the net, based on the fishing conditions.

The absence of loading of the lower selection allows expand the scope of application of PROFI networks. They can be used as: a floating drift net, for pelagic fishing, or used as a bottom net under any fishing conditions - both in the absence of a current and in a current of any strength.

In addition, the lack of loading also allows minimize transport costs when delivering these networks to distant regions of Russia.

To load the lower selection of PROFI fishing nets, you can use split net weights “Cylinder”, which are easily attached to the lower cord, and you can also use a cargo (weighting) cord by tying it to the lower cord.

The choice of loading option depends on the specific fishing conditions. The lifting capacity of the upper harness (floating cord) of PROFI networks allows the use of any load.

In the photo: Chameleon PROFI fishing net with L-100 floats (left) and N-22 floats (right).

Full parameters of CHAMELEON PROFI networks

Features of the care and operation of CHAMELEON PROFI networks

Fishnet Chameleon PROFI practically does not become polluted during the fishing process, it is easy to clean, allowing it to be used even if there is debris or a large number of organic particles in the water: during blooms of water, during the spring flood, when the current carries with it a large amount of dirt and debris.

Fishing nets provide a large catch in a short period of time. It is fishing nets that are used by companies that fish on an industrial scale. Ordinary fishermen too show interest in them, however, they need permission to use the networks. Fishing crews fill out paperwork before going to sea. Catching fish with nets without a license is poaching.

Network classification

It seems to many ordinary people that all teams use the same nets for fishing. In fact, you can find several types on sale. All networks are divided into thread and line. This division is determined by the material from which the seines are made. For the manufacture of thread seines they use nylon or nylon cords. Such gear is considered very durable. Tackle made from fishing line very often breaks, although there are seines made from twisted fishing line on sale that can last a long time.

There are fixed and smooth tackles. Fixed seines are installed in one place, but smooth seines are pulled on a motor boat or sent downstream. There is also a classification of fishing nets based on their structure. Experts distinguish the following types:

• gills;
• red;
• frame;
• casting

Fishermen consider gill nets to be the simplest, since they consist of only one sheet. All cells equal in size. The advantage of such nets is that they only catch fish of a certain size. Small items do not get confused and do not get stuck in nets.

Rye nets consist of three fabrics. The outer canvases are smaller in size than the average one. The cell size of the average canvas is always much smaller. The advantage of such gear is that the fish quickly gets confused. However, such nets often trap a lot of small trash fish. As a rule, the outer fabrics are woven from strong nylon threads, while the fabric in the middle is sewn from fishing line. This is due to the fact that large fish can break the line.

The main difference between frame seines is that their central part is very “soft”, but the edges are “hard”. Thanks to this structure, the fish quickly gets caught in a trap from which it cannot escape. Casting meshes are very similar to frame meshes, but differ in their small size. They are used exclusively for manual throwing into water.

Now on sale you can find products from various companies. The most popular fishing nets are those made in China. Their popularity is due to their low price. These gears are not distinguished by their high quality. Finnish seines are considered to be of higher quality and more reliable. They can last for several years. But their cost is quite high.

DIY making

Special craftsmen knit seines themselves. The manufacturing process is quite tedious. He demands accuracy and patience. To knit a network you need:

• floats;
• sinkers;
• shuttle;
• template (bar);
• fishing line or cord.

The shuttle is made of a plate with a cutout in the upper part. You need to wrap a fishing line or cord around it while weaving. In fact, the shuttle performs the same role as the needle. The plank can be made from a piece of ruler or plywood, 3 millimeters thick. Its length ranges from 10 to 12 centimeters. The width of the template depends on the desired cell size. The turn of the cord around the bar is equal to two cells.

All knitting accessories must be carefully sanded. If burrs remain on them, the threads will constantly cling and get tangled during work. This will lead to an increase in the time spent on making the seine.

The weaving process begins by attaching a thick cord in the shape of a ring to any structure. Then a loop is tied to it, which is made at the end of a thread (fishing line) tied to the shuttle. Then a second loop is formed, which is secured with a knot at the end. It takes a lot of repetitions to get the required width. After completing the first row, begin to weave the second. The only difference is that the cells of the second row are attached not to the cord, but to the first row.

After finishing the weaving, you need to thread two cords through the loops of the first and last row. Floats must be attached to the top cord. But special weights are attached to the lower cord.

Nets for feeding fish

The popularity of polyvinyl acetate nets is growing every year. They are a must-have equipment when fishing for carp. Such nets are needed to throw bait into a certain place. The net is a small bag that is filled with bait using a special tube. Before throwing the net into the pond, a hook with fish bait is hidden there.

A big advantage of polyvinyl acetate nets is the ability to dissolve in water. There are no traces of them left in the pond. There are 4 types of such nets on sale:

• cellular;
• solid;
• drowning;
• floating.

PVA nets can be purchased at any fishing store. Anyone can use them.

Hello, Reader. M. Snippy greets you.

Features of fishing with nets for certain types of fish

After spawning, the chubs that have migrated to deeper places come to their senses for several days, then begin intensive feeding. Usually the spring water begins to subside at this time, but the rivers have not yet entered the banks and are quite muddy and fast.

After the water finally clears, flocks of chub gradually disperse along the river and settle into their summer feeding areas. During this transition period, which lasts about 10–15 days (usually in the middle or second half of June), the chub goes well into fixed nets.

Later, in July and August, chubs are caught in the net by accident, when catching other fish, occasionally and one at a time. The fact is that the extremely uneven underwater terrain and current changes in the chub’s favorite summer stopping places make net fishing there impossible or very difficult. In addition, large fish are very cautious and even a thin monofilament net scares them. Theoretically, you can catch a good catch with a net in May, in the same places where fishing with donks is carried out - but in the reservoirs where I happened to hunt for chubs, there was a ban on fishing with nets in the spring, and they monitored its compliance very strictly.

At one time, through trial and error, I managed to find several places where chub were caught well in the net in June. “Not bad” does not at all mean that trucks had to be used to deliver the catch home: several chub got entangled in a thirty-meter net set out for 2–2.5 hours, but their total weight almost never reached the 5 kg allowed for catching.

I placed a three-wall net with a mesh of 32 mm, a length of 30 and a height of 1.8 m at a shallow depth, about 2 m, and almost all the chubs were caught in the upper third of the net; those entangled near the cargo cord could be counted on one hand. The bottom at the fishing site was flat, clayey-sandy; a large number of driftwood did not interfere with fishing: moth rafting in those places was stopped about 30 years ago, and the sunken logs were heavily buried and looked like oblong bottom elevations. Along the shore, in shallow water, there was a strip of thickets of water lilies that had just risen to the surface. Where the water lilies ended, an edge began, sloping into depth at an angle of 45 degrees; it was on this edge that I placed the net parallel to the shore. Attempts to fish further, at greater depths, did not bring success, perhaps because the chubs walked in the upper layers and swam much higher than the float line.

The fish were caught in small sizes, 400–500 g each, but during parallel fishing, hundred-gram chubs that freely passed through the meshes of the net were also pecked on the fishing rod. But sometimes even a respectable chub, weighing 1–2 kg, got entangled, and it was precisely in this case that a three-wall net was used.

It is characteristic that later, in the middle and end of summer, the chubs did not stay in the same places - they did not get caught in the nets and did not peck. It can be assumed that in June the chub does not immediately go straight to its favorite summer quarters: bridges, dams, holes behind the rifts, but for some time looks for suitable places, approaching the banks. In that place, by the way, the bank was densely overgrown with alder, many trees leaned over the water, some fell into the river with their crowns. The chubs swam up, fed on insects falling from the alder branches, but did not stay for long - the current there was smooth and quite strong, the chubs do not like to constantly fight with this.

To spawn, lake dace always enters rivers, and from large lakes - in very large quantities. At least, St. Petersburg fishermen on small rivers flowing into the Neva - on the Tosna, on the Mga and some others - are eagerly awaiting the arrival of its dense spring schools. Dace from Lake Ladoga and the source of the Neva spawn there, and in other successful years their schools can be compared in density to schools of smelt. In addition, the dace safely slips through the nets of fishermen and amateurs with licenses blocking the mouths - the mesh size of those gears is aimed at larger fish, the popular ide, raw fish and lake grayling.

Fixed nets for spring catching dace use one-walled nets with a mesh size of 20–25 mm, the so-called “dace nets”. Very often you have to fish in a significant current and in order to set the net across the river (nets stretched along the shore bring a much smaller catch), you have to use powerful stakes driven into the bottom, heavy anchors, and also hang additional floats and sinkers on the upper and lower pick-ups. In other years, when the dace is moving early, such fishing is difficult or impossible: the stormy water carries a lot of debris, sticks, snags, and even whole trees washed away from the banks.

Some fishermen, who consider themselves especially prudent, put three-wall nets with a small mesh on dace in the spring: they say, then everything that floats along the river will be caught: both large and small fish. Practice has shown the ineffectiveness of this approach: schools of spring dace are dense, and it takes much longer to disentangle it from a three-walled net than from a single-walled one - and while the fisherman is fiddling with this, both large and small fish swim past.

In summer, fixed dace nets are practically not set out, although dace are caught in them quite well, especially at night. But along with it, a large number of juveniles of other fish get tangled in the fine-mesh net: perches, chubs, breams; catching them means chopping the branch on which you are sitting.

Much more common is fishing with flowing nets, carried out from two boats floating downstream: a single-walled net is stretched between them, usually no more than 20 m long. The floating and cargo cords are selected so that the net has positive buoyancy, the mesh is used in sizes 25, 22 or even 20 mm, but the latter size makes sense to use where dace are small or few in number, since when fishing with a twenty net the bycatch of large bleak is very large . On the southern Russian rivers, on the contrary, they use a larger mesh - where sabrefish, also known as sabrefish, are found in sufficient quantities. Small fish of other, larger fish are very rarely caught in a smooth net. The best time for fishing with a floating net is at dusk and just after sunset, when the evening flight of all kinds of midges attracts numerous schools of dace to the surface.

The wary river asp is caught in a net only where it is found in large quantities, i.e. in the lower reaches of the great Russian rivers, and there it is caught with seines, especially in late autumn, when the “king of the rapids” loses a significant part of its liveliness and agility and no longer jumps over the top string of the net. In the middle zone, relatively successful asp catches with nets occur only on lakes and reservoirs. Moreover, in all these cases, the gear used is large and of commercial size, and such fishing is not available to amateurs.

Rice. 13. Screen for catching asp

But net lovers are no less inventive than spinners and anglers, and have come up with several ways to get the better of an asp where he is most careful - that is, on the riffles of small rivers.

One of these methods is the use of net screens, but special screens, not similar to ordinary ones: the current in the places favored by the asp will simply lay the “scarf” or “TV” on the bottom, leaving it without a catch. This tackle was born many years ago literally before my eyes, and this is how it happened: in a narrow, shallow and fast-water channel between reed thickets, a large asp used to chase small things, which did not allow anyone to approach him with a spinning rod or a live bait fishing rod, much less catch it boys of fourteen years old and with very primitive gear tried. They tried and tried, and then they came up with an idea: they found on the shore a discarded piece of net 1.5 m long and the same height, without any equipment, stretched it around the corners with four fishing lines, placing the ends of the fishing lines across the current in the place where the channel narrowed greatly tied to the roots of the reeds and to the tops, collected in a bundle (all by swimming and wading, without any rubber suits). No one seriously believed in success, but the most primitive tackle worked! The next morning, a large float tied to one of the lines (an antifreeze canister) swayed on the water ten meters downstream, and at the bottom lay a huge asp, swaddled like a baby!

I don’t know whether this gear is known to fishing science and whether it has an official name, but in action it is very reminiscent of a small tropic net set up by a land-based hare hunter in the place where they trample their paths in the winter in narrow gaps between dense bushes. Both the trail and the screen work the same way: a piece of net, invisible in the dark, hangs with the most minimal tension, and a fast-swimming fish (a fast-jumping hare) rips it off the fastening, begins to beat and wraps the net around itself.

Subsequently, the impromptu tackle was somewhat modernized: instead of four fishing lines tied to the corners of the screen, they began to use two horizontal ones, passed through the corner cells of the net - in this case, the screen bends somewhat under the pressure of the current, but an asp that hits it is more likely to be captured . It is better to use a net made not of thread, but of transparent monofilament, which is less noticeable in the water.

It’s hard to call this kind of prey fishing: it’s too labor-intensive to install the gear and there are too few places on the river where you can successfully stretch the screens, besides, each of them is disposable - it can catch only one fish per night, and empty triggers from some floating fish are not uncommon. flow of objects. But no one says that catching an asp is an easy matter.

In nets stretched across the current in the same places as the screens, asp are caught much less frequently. In order for the net, with its greater windage, to remain in the working position, it is necessary to use large floats and large sinkers, in addition to them stakes, heavy anchors and buoys of large carrying capacity - strange objects in large quantities alarm the asp, and he prefers to choose another road.

By applying a surge, you can still force the asp to leave the overnight stop and get caught in the net. But unlike pike, roach and other fish with fairly predictable behavior, a frightened asp can choose the most unexpected escape routes. In addition, it swims away from the source of alarm at such a speed that it often pierces the nets right through, especially if the net fabric is old or poorly placed (with a low landing coefficient).

Asps are more successfully caught with flowing nets stretched between two boats rafting downstream (more details about this fishing are described in the chapters “Dace” and “Floating Nets”), in the thickening twilight the asp gets caught in them more often than in the dead of night. But I haven’t come across any mention of special fishing for asps with smooth nets; usually asps are caught as a side catch.

Rudd

In the spring, rudds are not always and not everywhere caught with fixed nets, partly because it is inconvenient to place nets in places where they accumulate: even if you stretch a short net, 8-10 m long, in a clearing between the reeds, it still gets filled with a lot of garbage - fragments of stems, half-rotten roots and other plant debris. Yes, and getting a license for nets in areas where rudd is widespread is not so easy, and in Karelia and other northern regions, where amateur net fishing is most developed, rudd are almost never found. And for poachers who catch fish for sale, in the spring there are enough other, more attractive fishing objects.

Much more often, they are used with full-length “TV” screens with a mesh size of 35–40 mm, sometimes making them framed (passing 1–2 horizontal and 3–4 vertical strings through the mesh fabric) in case a bream or other large fish approaches the screen. The rudd is most likely to get tangled in screens at dawn, so you need to inspect the gear left on the pond at least twice a day. It is better not to use “kerchiefs,” i.e., triangular-shaped screens - even in the spring, rudd often stays at half-water and has less chance of falling into a tackle that tapers in its upper part.

In summer, the nature of fishing changes - the water becomes clear, underwater vegetation grows abundantly, in which rudds stay, and the fish are more well-fed and careful.

Fishing with screens continues in the summer, and often places for their installation have to be cleared using a rake, scythe or other available equipment (if fishing takes place near home and in rural areas). With such clearing, the most important thing is not to overdo it; it often happens that the rudd does not go out into the middle of a too large cleared window, but presses against the thickets along its edges. The height of the “TVs” (or the depth in the places where they are installed) must be selected so that the float stick is separated from the surface by the minimum distance - very often rudd stays in the summer at a depth of no more than 15–20 cm and will pass over deeply installed tackle. The float must be painted green with streaks (paints of bright, unnatural colors cannot be used).

However, even a massive float of a “TV” painted in a protective color can scare off rudd at first - then the screen sits for the first day or two without a catch, then the fish get used to the changed situation and begin to be caught. If it is not possible to wait such a period (for a one-day fishing trip), you can replace the standard float with an improvised one - from one or two cut stems of reeds, cattails or reeds.

Fishing with a screen with a rubber shock absorber (the so-called “track”) is more active and interesting, but for it it is necessary to make narrow and long clearings in the thickets of aquatic vegetation in advance (perhaps the name of the gear comes from them). The size of the “track” net when fishing for rudd in overgrown places is much smaller than in clear water (2–3 meters), and the weight of the sinkers and floats is selected so that the tackle does not sink to the bottom, remaining on the surface. Sometimes two floats located at the ends of the net are enough (the float farthest from the shore is made slightly larger to compensate for the residual tension of the rubber pulling down). The most convenient type of sinker is a weight cord with lead beads woven inside, but not a solid one, but 3-4 pieces 10 cm long, evenly distributed along the length of the lower harness. Sinkers cast from lead fall into the meshes and get tangled; sinkers made of wire-rings cling more strongly when the gear is released into the pond, while sections of the cargo cord are free of these shortcomings. The guard bell does not need to be used if you are fishing with one or two “paths” - the twitching of the floats on the surface is a good signal of any entangled fish.

In the summer, rudd are caught with fixed nets, exclusively using a rush of fish into them. Fishing in this way from a boat is called “botaning” and consists of the following: a shallow or underwater hill, densely overgrown with algae, water lilies, etc., is swept on all sides with nets. The most suitable are the so-called “botal” double-walled nets with a mesh size of 32–35 mm (the cutting blade, naturally, should be on the side of the net that faces open water), but in their absence, you can also use ordinary three-walled or frame nets with cells of suitable size.

You just need to meet two conditions:

1. the height of the network must completely cover the depth of the reservoir, i.e. the floating cord must be on the surface;
2. the networks must be connected in a single order without breaks - not only their upper and lower selections are connected together, but also the touching side veins of two neighboring networks are connected in several places.

These measures are aimed not so much against rudd as against pikes - predators like to stand in ambush at the edge of the same thickets where rudd feeds, and often go there to digest their prey after finishing their meal.

The fact is that in cyprinid fish, the eyes are widely spaced on the sides of the head and vision is not binocular: roach, rudd, and bream see only what is located in two non-overlapping hemispheres on both sides of the fish. Pike, on the contrary, clearly sees where it is swimming, and will never get confused “blindly” - if the predator is not too scared, then it slowly moves along the net, ready to escape through any hole or gap.

Then, having set out the nets, they swim in a boat to the very center of the thickets (in July this is sometimes not so easy to do, the underwater jungle grows so much) and begin to work directly - vertically and sharply lowering sticks with the necks of plastic bottles stuck on them into the water. At this moment, the main thing is not to rush to take out the nets when their floats twitch on the surface of the water - most likely, only roaches and breams that like to feed along the edge of the thickets are tangled. Rudd (and pike) require a long and thorough surge; the first blows of the “boot” only drive it deeper into the very thick of the algae.

It is much more effective in the summer heat to catch fish in a net near the banks by wading - this method is called “trampling.” With it, fishermen not only scare the fish with noise, but also actively stir up the water - more cautious fish, reluctant to go into the net in clear water, do not see it in muddy water and get entangled. And a rudd, huddled in the most impenetrable algae, can be trampled out of there in the most literal sense of the word.

The second advantage of “trampling” is that you can use nets of shorter length than when botanizing, especially when fishing in heavily overgrown coves, creeks, etc., when the banks act as a natural barrier for startled fish. In conditions where fishing regulations strictly limit the length of the net per license, this is quite an important advantage.

Pond crucian carp in most cases are inferior to river and lake crucian carp both in size and in the strength that the fish exhibit when trying to free themselves from the net. Therefore, to catch them, they use single-walled fixed nets with a mesh of 40 mm, woven from thin monofilament - 0.15-0.17 mm (provided that the monofilament is of high quality).

The landing coefficient along the length is 1x2, that is, from a “doll” of 60 m, a standard thirty-meter network is obtained. There is no point in using nets or orders of nets longer than 30 m on ponds; on the contrary, on small reservoirs it is worth installing shorter nets. The height of the network is also sufficient in most cases to be standard - 1.5–1.8 m.

A 40 mm mesh allows you to reliably encase crucian carp weighing from 200 to 700 g, and larger fish are rarely found in pond fishing.

On lakes where crucian carp are usually larger, or if specimens weighing more than 1 kg are often found in the pond, a three-wall or frame net should be used.

If you don’t have these at hand, low (0.6–0.8 m high) single-walled nets, the so-called spawning nets, with a mesh of 40 mm, can help. Small crucian carp are tied in them in the usual manner, and for large fish the net works like a frame: a net pocket is formed between the upper and lower selection, in which large crucian carp become entangled. The disadvantage of this type of fishing is that even three or four tangled kilogram fish can make the net completely unsuitable for further fishing: the cargo and floating cords are twisted into a bundle along the entire length of the net. Therefore, low nets are more applicable where there are not too many large crucian carp, or the gear needs to be checked quite often, once an hour, which is not always convenient.

This inconvenience can be partly avoided by the uneven, “trapezoidal” planting of single-walled nets, carried out as follows: a sixty-meter “doll” of standard height is placed on an upper cord 20 m long and a lower cord 30 m long. The large difference in the length of the upper and lower cords leads to the fact that the lower part of the net has a “pleated” effect, that is, it consists of many vertical pockets. In terms of catchability, the net is comparable to a “tangle”, but it frees you from the main problem of a three-walled net: the difficulties with untangling the fish. And in such a net, crucian carp are caught much larger than in an ordinary one-walled one.

One of the main conditions for successful fishing for crucian carp: the net must have minimal negative buoyancy, and floats must be used with a minimum carrying capacity. There is no current in the ponds, and the only purpose of the floats and sinkers is to stretch the net in the water.

Select the size of the float as follows: tie a weight to the float and lower it into a bucket of water. The PG system (float-sinker) should sink in the water very slowly and reach the bottom of the bucket within 8-10 seconds. If necessary, the size of the float is increased or reduced, then the remaining floats are made according to the resulting template and attached to the cord of an already planted net in increments of 1 m, that is, less often than on a net intended for river fishing.

Below, opposite each float, sinkers are tied. If the net is planted in the manner described above, with different lengths of cords, then, accordingly, the distance between the loads should be 1.5 m. A net planted in this way has minimal tension in the water, and when a large crucian carp gets into the folds and begins to rush, it quickly finds itself entangled in delusion.

Since very often you have to catch crucian carp in heavily silted waters, it is better to make sinkers in the form of wire rings (the diameter of the wire used is 2 mm), such rings are not buried in the silt. The diameter of the ring is usually 3–3.5 times greater than the mesh of the network. If possible, the material used for the rings is non-corrosive; otherwise, the rings are covered with cambric or painted with waterproof paint, which is regularly renewed.

It is also very convenient to use weight cords with lead weights woven inside and floating cords with foam plastic woven inside; In this case, buoyancy adjustment is carried out by tying together the coils of the cargo and floating cords and lowering them into a suitable container filled with water; if necessary, adding mounted floats or sinkers.

* * *

A similar method of planting crucian carp nets is used by Siberian fishermen, for whom large Amur crucian carp has become a very enviable trophy in recent years. This is how they describe their nets for lake carp fishing.

“Firstly, the length of one upper landing is determined by the sum of four mesh sizes (we call this the “length of five nodes”). For example, you are planting a net with a mesh size of 30 mm, which means that the size of the top planting will be 30 mm x 4 = 120 mm.

Secondly, five cells are selected for one upper landing and a double or triple knot is made with a landing thread.

Third, two cells are added to one lower planting, and the size of the planting should be two times smaller than in the upper planting, that is, 60 mm.

This method of landing ensures good catchability of the net; the elongated diamond shape of the mesh at the top and the pleating of the mesh at the bottom do not allow the caught fish to pull down the net and make it inoperable.

More than a bucket of crucian carp was caught in a net with such a landing in one night.”

If for some reason you don’t have suitable frame nets or three-wall nets at hand and it is not possible to make a specially planted crucian carp net yourself using the methods described above, you can catch large crucian carp using the method described above - a “hammock”.

* * *

Nets for catching crucian carp in stagnant waters are in most cases placed at night along the shore, so as to block the crucian carp's approaches to feeding areas. The best places are along thickets of reeds or cattails, along the edge of coastal vegetation, along floating banks in wetlands. Only in the spring, when aquatic plants have not yet risen, schools of crucian carp in search of food swim quite haphazardly throughout the entire reservoir, and then the largest catch is brought by nets that go from the shore into the depths. At the same time (at the end of April and May), crucian carp are very successfully caught using “tracks” - small nets with a rubber shock absorber, cast from the shore. The “path” is an active tackle that requires the presence of the fisherman, otherwise even one large crucian carp is capable of getting entangled and twisting the net left on the “samolov” into a rope. (For more information about line fishing, see the chapter of the same name.)

Small net screens for catching crucian carp are used much less frequently. But in some cases (on heavily overgrown reservoirs) only they can be successfully used in small “windows” of clean water. It is imperative to take care of places intended for fishing with screens.

Generally speaking, the importance of bait and bait when fishing with nets is greatly underestimated, while skillfully applied bait can significantly increase the catch of fish such as crucian carp and crucian carp. It is especially necessary in artificial (dug) reservoirs, vast and, at the same time, shallow (1.5–2 m), with a uniform underwater topography. The vegetation in such ponds and quarries is not concentrated in the coastal strip, but rather randomly scattered throughout the reservoir, and crucian carp just wander randomly in search of food - single fish can become entangled in nets placed at random, and only sometimes, when a school approaches, decent catches occur . For regular successful fishing, it is necessary to attach several places (preferably from a boat, in an area inaccessible to coastal anglers). The same herbal ingredients are used as for fishing, with the addition of aromatic substances.

Riding nets (not sinking to the bottom, but floating on the surface) are almost never used for catching crucian carp. But sometimes it happens that on a hot summer night, crucian carp move to the feeding areas on top, 40–50 cm from the surface of the water. In this case, noticing that the fish get entangled only in the upper rows of the meshes, it is necessary to move the nets to a shallower depth so that the floats remain on the surface. Although, of course, an asymmetrical net aimed at bottom fishing for crucian carp will work much worse for mounted fish.

* * *

About thirty years ago, no one even remembered about ice fishing for crucian carp with nets: it was believed that crucian carp spend the cold months in hibernation, often buried in silt, and begin to move through the reservoir and get caught in the net only after the ice has melted and the water has warmed up.

But for some reason modern crucian carp have changed their habits described by the classics. It must be assumed that global warming is not the only reason for this: the water temperature in a reservoir in winter remains unchanged, regardless of what air temperature the thermometer shows: -5 °C or -35 °C. Although it cannot be denied that frequent winter thaws should contribute to the activation of crucian carp - melt water enters the reservoirs, improving the oxygen regime.

It is possible that the general confidence in the hibernation of crucian carp that existed in the 19th and 20th centuries was erroneous, because both Bram and Sabaneev wrote about winter fishing for crucian carp in Yakutia, and it is not for nothing that Yakut winters are considered the most severe in Eurasia.

Be that as it may, now crucian carp are actively caught in winter in most regions, both with fishing rods and nets (at least in fairly large reservoirs; in small ponds there is no point in catching crucian carp in winter with a net). Fishing is especially successful at the beginning of winter, on first ice, when schools of crucian carp are actively moving, continuing to feed. Small, palm-sized crucian carp rise to the upper layers of the water at this time (possibly in search of amphipods and other food), and through thin transparent ice you can often see schools of crucian carp swimming away from the fisherman; large specimens always stay near the bottom. Methods for installing nets under ice are described in detail in the section “Fixed nets”.

Places for fishing are chosen somewhat differently than in summer: aquatic vegetation falls off, and crucian carp prefer to get food from the mud in deeper places - there, on the muddy bottom, nets must be installed.

In the middle of winter, the activity of crucian carp decreases, and with it the catches. In convenient places (for example, in narrow muddy backwaters of rivers), you can increase them by driving fish into the net.

On the last ice, crucian carp become active again, but are caught in nets in other parts of the reservoir: near the shore, near wormwood and ice holes, and in those places where springs gush from the bottom or a stream flows into a pond or lake - that is, the movement of the fish is connected with a search not for food, but for more comfortable, oxygen-rich water.

It happened to me at the end of February and March to catch very large crucian carp, placing nets in winter in essentially open water, along the edges of a large, 3 x 10 m, ice hole made for “walruses”. There were also good catches of crucian carp in low “spawning” nets stretched at shallow depths along the shore, but there the catches were dominated by small fish.

Nets are less common for spring fishing for Baltic smelt than nets and lifts.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly, fine-mesh nets are used to catch smelt (with a mesh of 20–22 mm, even 18 mm for small Ladoga smelt), and the smaller the mesh, the more expensive the mesh (more thread is used to make it). In addition, smelt nets are usually knitted from thin monofilament thread (0.12-0.15 mm) and require extremely careful handling, which is difficult in the spring - snags (bottom and floating on the water), stones, and all kinds of objects thrown into the water tear the nets very much , of which there are plenty in the vicinity of the big city.

Often you have to wade a smelt net in a rubber suit, and if you accidentally get entangled in your own gear, you can tear the thin monofilament quite thoroughly.

Another reason why St. Petersburg fans do not like smelt nets is the inability to use them to catch other fish after the end of the short spring run of smelt (only in places where large quantities of large bleak are found, you can catch them well in the summer with a twenty net, but bleak The fish is too low-value for this method of fishing).

However, those who still decide to catch smelt with a net can give some advice:

1. Buy a net or mesh made of monofilament with a thickness of 0.17 mm (as thick as possible for fine-mesh nets). The tackle will be more visible to the fish, but will last much longer.
2. Plant the mesh fabric on rebounds with a small coefficient (1.2–1.4).
3. Place the nets at night along the shore, at a short distance from it. During the day, smelt walks along the river's core, where it is inconvenient to set nets in the spring, and in the dark it presses close to the banks.
4. Check networks as often as possible. The smelt (if a school of fish has approached) is packed into the net very tightly, sinking it to the bottom. In addition, smelt entangled in the cells quickly dies and rapidly decomposes (however, smelt fished out or caught in a lift remains alive for a long time, even not lowered into the cage).
5. Be sure to purchase a license. Saving on it while breaking the law is simply unprofitable. A license for a day of fishing (at prices in the 2000s) cost tens of rubles, a kilogram of smelt at market prices cost at least one and a half hundred, and the daily norm of 15 kg can be easily selected with an authorized fifty-meter net (even thirty or twenty-five meters - where the rules allow only these sizes). In Karelia and other northern regions, smelt are caught with nets much more often than in the Leningrad region. There is a reason for this: fine-mesh nets are used there not only in the spring for smelt, but also for catching vendace at other times of the year. In addition, in the north, fishing rules allow castings with a large number of hooks, and live bait for them is often caught in a net.

Net screens (so-called “kerchiefs”) are also used for spring smelt fishing; the rules allow the use of five of them per angler. “Scarfs” are either installed in the same way as nets (at night, not far from the shore), or are lowered vertically from bridges, embankments, etc.

Sometimes it happens that smelt en masse ends up in nets that are not intended for it. Once I had the opportunity to witness how a net set for bream (large mesh, made of twisted thread) was removed on Ladoga. The net turned out to be literally strewn with smelt, which, it would seem, should have easily slipped through the large mesh. However, the silvery fish hung, clinging to the threads with their numerous small teeth, and did not come loose, even when taken out of the water. And, judging by the stories, this is not an isolated case. It is not clear what explains this strange behavior of the smelt.

Burbot is rarely caught in fixed nets, much less often than other fish species. Although I had the opportunity to catch (with other gear) burbots, on the body of which traces of embedded cells were visible. It is quite possible that the soft and compressible body of the burbot allows it, given some time, to leave the net, slipping through the meshes - and only recently entangled fish fall into the hands of the fisherman. In addition, fishermen avoid placing nets in snags, the favorite habitat of burbot, and the net’s load cord, stretched by the current, allows the fish literally crawling along the bottom to slide under the gear, taking advantage of any unevenness in the underwater terrain.

In fixed nets stretched under the ice, burbot are caught much more often if the fishing spot is chosen successfully than in the open water season. This is due to the fact that fish, scattered at other times throughout the reservoir, gather in winter in more or less dense schools, moving to the spawning grounds.

On the rivers of the North and Siberia, abundant in burbot, such a concentration can be fabulous, downright fantastic. Let me cite as an example one case described in 1985 in the newspaper “Krasnoyarsk Worker” (later the article was reprinted in the central press). It happened like this: two fishermen from the Turukhansk region went fishing on the Yenisei. A fox was spotted on the ice, doing something near the ice hole. At the sight of people, the redhead ran away, dropping a large burbot. The hole was literally teeming with mustachioed predators: you could scoop it with a bucket, or with a fox’s paw. The brave fishermen were not at a loss, widened the wormwood and in four days they caught several thousand burbot with a net weighing over 20 tons - the catch was transported by Mi-8 helicopter on four flights. Moreover, history cannot be accepted as a fisherman's tale, a hoax hung over the ears of a gullible correspondent - the catch was accepted at the fishery under a hastily concluded agreement and, of course, was weighed at the same time.

By the way, one moment in the history of this fishing record is worth taking note of. Namely, a polynya on the Yenisei. Frosts in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in winter are not weak, and the polynya clearly indicates that strong springs bubbled up from the bottom in that place. It is in such places that nets for burbot should be installed in lakes and large rivers or near the mouths of flowing streams and rivulets.

Burbot gets into fishing screens – “kerchiefs” and “TVs” – rarely and accidentally, as bycatch.

Sincerely, M. Snippy.

Between the mesh pitch and the length of the fish, Professor F.I. Baranov in 1923 established a relationship expressed by the following formula:

a = k 1 L

Where a – the desired mesh pitch; k 1 – coefficient depending on the ratio of the maximum coverage of the fish and its length; L – length of the fish.

Coefficient k | is assumed to be equal for wide fish (carp, bream, crucian carp, silver bream, etc.) on average – 0,20 ; for medium-sized fish (roach, whitefish, puzanok, muksun, ram, etc.) – 0,15 ; for narrow fish (pike perch, pike, mullet, mackerel) – 0,10 . Further, more detailed studies made it possible to clarify the coefficients of commercial fish (Table 1).

In accordance with the above formula we find:

a = 0.11 x 45 ≈ 5.0 cm.

What kind of fish will a net with a 40 mm mesh catch? According to the formula

L = a/k 1 calculate L = a/k 1 = 40/0.18 = 220 mm = 22 cm

Naturally, with a net you can catch fish not only of the sizes that are calculated according to calculations, but also those close to them.

Table 1

Coefficients of the relationship between the maximum coverage of fish and its length

The relationship between the mesh pitch and the size of the fish can also be expressed through the mass of the fish (m):

For a group of wide fish the mass coefficient will be 7, for medium ones – 6, for narrow ones – 5.

What mass of roach will be caught in nets with a mesh pitch of 36 mm?

Roach is a medium-sized fish for which the mass coefficient is 6. From the formula we find:

Determine the mesh pitch of a net for catching bream weighing 1 kg.

Bream is a wide fish, for which the mass coefficient will be equal to 7. From the formula we find:

Net fishing

According to the method of application, there are fixed nets, river flowing nets and sea drift nets. Depending on the depth of setting the nets are called upper, pelagic or bottom. According to their design features, networks are divided into simple ones - single-walled, multi-walled (2-3-walled) or cut and framed.

Simple networks(Fig. 4) are a flat mesh fabric placed on the upper and lower selections, and sometimes strands - pieces of thin rope or mesh attached to the mesh fabric to increase local strength. The length of the strands is 20% less than the height of the net in the planting. The vertical position of the nets in the water is ensured by equipping them with floating and weights. The height of the network is usually expressed by the number of cells. Typically, the height of 18-25-meter partial nets is 25-30 meshes, herring and belly nets - 30-45, large mesh nets, for example for flounder fishing, only 9-12. Nets are planted with a coefficient of 0.5-0.67.

Rice. 4. Simple fixed net installed on stakes

Cut or multi-walled nets (two- or three-walled) consist of several mesh fabrics, planted on the same selections (Fig. 5).

One of the canvases - the middle one - is calculated based on catchability conditions. Its landing is done with a lower coefficient to make the network even softer and more tangled. The mesh in this cloth corresponds to the size of the fish being caught, and the cloth is called a piece, in contrast to a cloth with a larger mesh called rezhyo. The size of the rezhi cell is 4-5 times larger than the particle cell. The length of the flint is assumed to be equal to the size of the cutting mesh.

Rice. 5. Fixed marine three-wall net.

The net is set partially towards the fish, which passes through the large mesh of the net and becomes entangled in the resulting bag. Despite their high catchability, such nets become twisted when there is a mass movement of fish and therefore have limited use.

Frame nets are a mesh fabric equipped with a rope binding. The planting of the mesh fabric is very dense with a coefficient of 0.3-0.4. As a result, the tension of the threads is low, and the net hangs freely in the windows of the frame. Frame dimensions are assumed to be 400-800 mm. When making frame nets, the net fabric is first placed on pick-ups. Then, along the canvas, through each cell, 3-7 longitudinal veins are passed at an equal distance from each other and from the selection. The ends of the longitudinal veins are attached to the side ones. The same is done with the transverse veins. At places of intersection, the longitudinal and transverse veins are fastened together (Fig. 6).

Rice. 6. Top pick-up and side strands of the frame network.

Depending on the depth, the nature of the soil and the strength of the currents, the installation of nets is carried out on poles (at a depth of 2-3 m), on chips (pegs 60-80 cm high driven into the bottom) and on anchors.

Networks can be installed either individually or in orders of several interconnected networks. There is also a method of installing nets using a weather vane (2 nets each), when the guy is placed on only one side, which allows you to change the direction of installation of the nets depending on the direction and strength of the currents.

Smooth river fishing

A flowing river net is a fishing gear that floats downstream towards the movement of the fish (Fig. 7). The length of such nets in planting varies greatly in different rivers and can range from 50-70 to 300-600 m. The height of the nets also varies - from 1.5 to 8 m.

Rice. 7. Floating net

The landing factor is 0.5. To increase catchability, the netting cloth is sometimes placed only on the upper selection, while the lower one hangs freely. Such nets are called self-propelled nets. The location of the nets during rafting is regulated by the size of the floats and sinkers.