On 30 Octomber 2021 went fishing for perch with lures on a public lake. Walking towards the lake, I've passed through the a village - Somanesti/Calnic, where I've saw an interesting house. I like it's style.
The fishing session started at ~2 PM as the fishing session was unplanned and I didn't know where to go, nor what fishing style to practice. The lake should have crucian carp, tench, two invasive fish species Pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibossus) and Brown bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus) ; in the past, I've could catch chub, but, with time, as the lake started to get covered with underwater weeds, the chub started to disappear or to retreat towards the clear water - I've used to catch them on surface lures (like Salmo Tiny), close to the reeds/aquatic vegetation, near fallen logs, under the forest or in those places where the wind could bring insects (especially locusts as the lake's surrounded by some high hills); sometimes, the chub could be found where the water was shallow or where the lake started to narrow.
Some anglers said that the lake also has pike, carp, rudd and roach, though, until now, I coudn't catch any. At around 1 km, somewhere on the top of the hills is places a smal pond where, in the past, I've could catch small roach/rudd. If time allows, in the future, I plan to move some to the bigger lake as they could find better conditions - the pond is small and, as times pass, it gets swalowed by weeds and aquatic plants, beside that, the bigger lake has a certain depth and could use their help to create a certain biodiversity. In the past, it's said that there were some nice ones. I'm not sure why they no longer can be caught, maybe they've got too big, but, at least, few small ones should be present when fishing, maybe they were eaten by cormorans or by otters? Who knows. I suspect that there should be catfish, though, I'm not sure as I've never fished there at night, nor did I see or hear of any catfish younglings to be caught.
I'm curious to see if the Brown bullhead has any natural predators, even though it's an invasive fish species. From what I've saw online, there are some birds that predate them, like cormorans, but I'm not sure if there are any european fish who would constantly attack them. I suspect that pike or european catfish could attack them, but I've never saw, nor heard of that.
In the past, I've caught a small a small chub a small Pumpkinseed fish, at float. I've also saw, few years ago, nice perch being caught at Pumpkinseed, on the bottom.
A certain lake near the big one; it's pretty shallow and in the past I've saw anglers catching small crucian carp. I never fished too much in it due to it's depth and because in the hot season there's too much vegetation. I suspect there to be some roach, rudd and I've caught 1 small chub, there should be bigger ones.
The big lake:
Near the bridge the water reaches a water depth of aroun 2 meters; it's a shallower area where other anglers, in the summer season, could catch crucian carm, bullhead catfish, small tench.
This area is, from my point of view, the deepest part of the lake. I think that it;'s depth is more than 5 meters in some places.
In this area, last autumn saw an otter predating just before it got dark.
In that corner, on the opposite lake bank, nice crucian carp could be caught, near the reeds.
Caught no fish, nor did I have any attacks. There fere few other anglers who tried their luck, but no one could catch anything. Though, I suspect that one of them (he was on the other lake bank) caught 1 or two small crucian carps in the late afternoon.
The curious thing is that I've saw only one Lepomis gibossus fish, near the lake bank, where the water was very shallow, but, in rest, no fish presence could be felt. To my surprise, ~ 1 hour before it got talk, the fish got active, I've could see them ,,eating" at the water surface and they did that on the first part of the lake, where the water was, hm, shallower or, at least, where the lake bottom was irregular. The fish were eating/playing and with no shyness. I suspect that they did that because, before it got dark, a short breeze started to play and because due to the water clarity, the fish were searching for the reeds safety. As it got dark, few predators were supposed to be active (except, maybe predator fish like catfish).
B.The second fishing session was on Jiu river, up a certain bridge. The fish were shy, even though I've could see some feeding at the surface. Due to abrupt and heavy vegetation I've coudn't find a better place on my river bank so.. I've fished under and between some trees. The water had a dept of ~1,5 meters, it was warmer than I've expected, mabye because of a certain heating industry up the river. It was a tricky fishing session as I've coudn't build a good fishing feeding habit and so I've coudn't select the bigger fish. I've tried to catch bleak, caugt 1 small rudd/roach, 1 small - finger size barbel and 1 bitterling. I've kept the bigger bleak.
Had to use a 0,08 leader, a <1 gram float and a red 18 Gamakatsu hook with a single maggot hooked on the hard side. Had to constantly feed the swim as the fish weren't cooperating. If there was no food, there were no baits. Though, at some moment the bigger bleak were biting downstream. I suspect that some bigger fish, maybe even predator ones (there was a perch like attack) came to the swim as for some time there were very few baits. To my surprise, even if the weather was cloudy and a bit cold, the bleak ate.
Other anglers were fishing from a bridge at barbel by using worm, maggots and cheese. Their results so and so results as the average size of the barbel was around 15 cm.
Maybe, in the future, I should bait on the bottom and try to check the fish there. Maybe I should use two fishing rods with different baits and different hook size.
C.Today I went fishing at T, the lake near the Jiu river, up the two dams. The lake is connected to the river/dams so, when the dams are up, the water level is falling. We arrived at the lake at arount 8 am, found a better place than the date before. Wanted to catch crucian carp, but, in the end, I've ended fishing for bleak due to the fact that only 1 angler had constant results at crucian carp - he found an area where the lake bottom had a ,,hole" in which the fish shoal was staying - he caught few crucian carps who were around 400 grams. The hole had a ~2 meters depth.
I've used a <1grams float, 0,08 leader line, 0.18 Gamakatsu hook - the fish weren't biting very well and had to constant feed even though there was a really big fish shoal - thounsands fish! The problem was that I've coudn't select the big bleak, nor could I check the bottom to see if crucian carp, roach and rudd were present. From what other anglers said, there's also pike, carp. All fishing session could see perch attach, the perch seemed very aggresive or maybe there was also a pike? Caught 2 small perch at maggot and a bigger one at worm. In the future I'll try to use some soft lures, to see what's exactelly happening. The water depth- after it retreated- was around 1 meter, the bites were shy. If there was no feeding, there were very few bites. I've could see that from how many bites other anglers had. The guy who caught most crucian carps was using very small corn mashup cubes and I think that he was using 2 hooks.
The nights are getting colder and colder and the water started to freeze. The weather was cloudy.
After the water retreated, the bleak retreated with it and it started to feed further.
Next time, I should search for a bigger depth and to see if a heavy bait feeding could bring better results. Maybe I should use a short fishing pole (~3-5 meters) and a better set up, a sensitive one with a ~0.5 grams float.
Almost no other angler was feeding the fish as constant as me and they had few bites and caught small fish.
Even from boat, at the middle of the lake, the results were bad. The fish retreated in the deeper levels?
I've repeated an old mistake as I've went fishing being tired.
