Session Blog - Cold Water, What Catches Best Now!

Two anglers, winter, high water, a freezing night and a short time window. These are the key data for the session I would like to tell you about here. A few weeks ago, I met up with Stefan Seuß on the German Rhine to try for winter walleye. Due to the weather and water situation, we were a bit indecisive in the run-up to the session, regarding the choice of location. Would we prefer to fish in the calm water of the old arm or in the stream? The decision fell on the latter and so we met in the early afternoon, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

For the first time in a long time, the sun was shining brightly and there were no clouds in sight. It was not yet T-shirt weather, but at least we could leave our jackets in the car for the time being.

We had decided on a long stone pack and the chosen spot could be approached directly by car, at least for unloading. A constant current pushed the coffee-brown water past the stones of the pack and we were both very curious to see whether the catfish would be there and, above all, active. The small camp was quickly set up and all we needed to work was a small inflatable boat with an internal combustion engine. Nevertheless, the hours of sunshine passed very quickly and in the end we had to hurry to get the mounts set before dark.

Cold water is worm water, at least that's what we've learned from the past, so of course the worm rig was the first choice for both of us. But since we never know exactly how the catfish are, we also decided to use an additional dead trout mount. So the plan was to use two worm mounts and two deadfloat mounts.

The rock pack was straight and actually didn't have much structure. Due to the hard current, we placed all the mounts close to the bank, near the base of the pack. No matter where an active fish approached, it had to get past one of our lures. At least that was our plan. We mounted additional bobber line on all rods to minimise the risk of breakage by the stones and kept all lines close to the shore by redirecting them to offer as little surface for flotsam as possible.

When the sun finally departed, we were quickly caught by the cold. Cloudless skies in winter always mean an icy night, and we quickly realised this in the first few hours of darkness. The gas barbecue gave us a bit of warmth and conjured up some delicious chicken legs, but after dinner it was just a matter of brushing our teeth and going to bed. We were happy to lie in the warm sleeping bag, there was no question about that. When I'm fishing in winter I'm often at odds with myself, hopefully there will be a bite because we're here to catch a fish ... hopefully there won't be a bite because it's far too cold to get up in the night. It was the same this time and I was actually quite happy that the fish had chosen option two for the time being.

In the sleeping bag it was very comfortable and when we both had already made friends with a blank, what often happens when fishing happened, it turned out differently than expected. Bite!!! Noticeably surprised, Stefan quickly stood by his rod, which jerked forward frantically, and I couldn't and wouldn't escape this morning's action either. The catfish seemed to be hooked and we followed it over the frozen stones. All went well, angler unhurt, fish safely hooked and in the end it was once again the Tree-Upose on the worm mount that cut us. Happy and a little astonished, we took care of the fish, whose big belly left no doubt that the fish were eating.

The end of the story is quickly told. The small time window with little tackle was used optimally, the two anglers were happy and the worm once again proved to be a top winter bait.