looking west south, in the middle of lake (a point of soil is out of water) is where I was fishing last year, when water level was so low!

For 3rd year on, I decided to go to Laar lake at Damavand peak foot fishing for the rare brownies, yes these are really rare, at least in Iran, where this lake is the only lake holding them.

Line of cars waiting to enter the protected area and get permissions, Fog everywhere.

Well past 2 month have passed very hard in my country, so I really couldn’t go sooner, and it is about the end of the legal fishing season (for this species of course).   I thought I need to go there before I totally miss this year’s chances.

after environmental post, I am waiting for Sepehr to take the permissions.

My cousin and I got on road at 3 in the morning and went along Haraaz road.  When we were about to turn to the Laar road at Polur, 3 hitchhikers asked us to give them a ride to the lake, and we made friends along the way.

Before reaching dam, fog everywhere

They were enough enthusiastic for this species that they have been came all the way from Amol at northern province of Mazandaran.  From Imamzadeh Hashem peak The way was all in the fog, and it continued to be the same along the Laar road.  Near the environmental post, it was a long long line of cars waiting to get permissions and enter the area.  Believe me, some of those are so eager they almost race this last part which is not much paved and has no asphalt.  They all want to get to the lake to get the best place and also to not lose the morning, you will find out why this one is important later.

Delichai river

In that day, they started giving permissions at 5:30, so everybody lost at least 30 minutes of valuable time. I guess we lost even more, as line was long.  So we continued towards middle of the lake.  This year the lake contains much more water due lots of rains in the spring, and my last year’s fishing location was totally under water.  That is good news for Tehran of course, we have enough water this year.

camera looking south, My cousin Sepehr, we are walking toward the lake.

After parking at side of road and 20 minutes of walking, I decided on a location eastward which was under a hills shadow at least for an hour or two, we started at about 7:00, finally.

looking east, still foggy, but sun has rose and still ok for fishing

Some other people have been reached there before us, and their lines were casted already, but we had a 100 meter area to our own.  I used a 3 string trout rig (a last night’s work), used earth worms on two bottom ones and 1/4 of Kilka (some kind of Caspian Sardine) on the top hook set.  Casted about 50 meters and started to prepare the second rod.  The first fish was caught in a few seconds.

looking east, laar lake, still foggy, cool, best conditions for brown trout fishing.

It was not a big catch, but very encouraging.  Kilka bait worked there. and as it was still foggy and cool, I believe this was the perfect condition.  caught the first one, again caste the line and tried to prepare the second rod, again the first one caught some fish!  I was really feeling lucky

a 39 cm brown trout, with black and red dots, and almost green top

This one was 39 cm long, and kind of heavy for this species, maybe about 1 kg or so, I didn’t weight it as sun was raising and clouds were disappearing.  Then it seemed no luck, and I was also trying different combination of baits.  Nothing except Kilka seemed to work, and overall we got another big brown trout which was both big and fighting.  Unfortunately (for me, not for the fish )  after I removed hooks from her, she put 2 of hooks in my finger and jumped in the water, and danced all the way to the deep lake

My fishing rod still waiting more fish, but no fog and it is getting warm

We got nothing as clouds were gun, and nobody in our area caught anything.  We stayed untill 3:00 p.m. and at the same moment the small one found a way in my keep net to get out, right when we were about to get back.  As it was too small, we didn’t anything serious to stop him, and he went back to the lake as well.

Overall, this time it was much more fun than those times before, and also warmer.  weather is so clean and cool, so wind is cool, but sun burns your skin.

Damavand peak inside clouds.

And last but not least, as always, I bought a few big rainbows from a Haraz river fish farm, it is always nice to buy fresh from the source!

I am not sure if I can og again this year, but I will if I can.  only one week remains from the legal season.

Paymaan.

If you are fishing for fun, or just playing by the lake or river in a good day, you may use a single line of any type, a wooden or metal hook made by yourself and a branch of a tree and it may work, but here I want to share tips which can help us achieve better results, and have more fun or more fish for the dinner

Fishing by rod and hook is actually tricking the fish to think she is reaching for food, hunting for it,  finding it or anything else you like to name it.  We want to fish to eat the bait or whatever we have on the hook so it traps himself and we catch it.

So first of all we have to know the feeding behavior.

• Some fish are visual feeders, they “look” for food, by their eyes I mean.
• Some sense the smell of the food rather than seeing it.
• Some are like filters, they eat whatever comes forward and filter out the waste and keep the food.

For visual feeders, we need baits which attract the fish visually, for those who smell, we need smelly food and bait, and for the third we can almost do nothing if we use hook instead of the net. Mullet is of the last type, ofcourse it too has some ways of catching which we can later talk about.

The other thing we have to know is that in what condition they start feeding. If you have everything ready and fish is not willing to eat or attack, then you will not catch it. I have stayed at a lake full of brown trouts for several hours without any fish even trying to bite the tons of different lures and bait I had with myself. Well don’t be scared, even if I didn’t catch anything, I enjoyed the lake side and the weather and the nature so much! that is the good thing about fishing.

Then in some ways, consider planning what size of fish you want to catch. The size really matters in this case, you have to have proper line, hook and rod, as well as proper reel.

As we go, you will learn more about this kind of fish behavior. I’ll try to share my knowledge of the some of fish so we can better decide to how fish for the target species.

As an start know that Sport fish like trout, bass and pike are all visual hunters and this is really good for us. Then species like carp, chub (white fish or Sefid Maahi as we say in Iran), catfish and surgeon are more likely to hunt for the smell of the food, smell attracts them more than the visuals, although not absolutly.

Because of this big difference, we normally take two kind of strategy for this two major groups.

More on this in the next post.

Paymaan.

For some long time I had nothing in my brain at all, what about some overflow but today I really felt like writing, and I am going to start some basic discussions about fishing. Just keep in mind I am an amateur myself with absolutely no catches at least during the year 2007, So I am trying to give hints on what I already know, and what I have studied and learned through web, Chasse Et Peche channel, and hints I have learned from experts.Ok, Enough of scaring you of lack of my expertise, let’s see what things an average fisherman needs to start fishing. Consider you can catch fish using almost nothing other than your hands or a piece of wooden hook and a line, but we are not talking of survival skills, we are talking about some kind of average sport fishing.

Tools you need include basic fishing tackle, things like:

• some kind of fishing rod, to be able to cast and handle your line and play/fight with fish.
• fishing line, of any suitable form
• hooks, again of a suitable form for our purpose
• some kind of reel to hold your line, sometimes to help you fight fish as well
• some bait to attract fish to bite the hook, normally fish food, lure, bread, etc. etc. but I have seen people catch huge pikes using AA batteries as bait!
• Something to use as weight, to keep your hook underwater, in some types of fishings. These are normally lead or other metallic weights, but every other heavy enough thing would be ok. Sometimes bait is heavy enough, sometimes you need reverse weight, I mean something to bring the bait up, some kind of floating weight. You may even use your friend as bait and weight for catching huge fish
• sometimes you need floats, these are tools to keep part of your line out of water, so the other part will stay on some specific depth of water.

Then you need some skills, some are more needed, some less, but be sure, the more you have these skills, it will be more professional, and it will be more fun!

• First of all, it is much better to know the fish species you are trying to catch. Every kind of fish has its own habits, diet, feeding time, strategy etc. etc.
• Ability to learn and tie some fishing knots. If you don’t know how to tie a hook to a line, your fish along your hook will escape easily. Even some kind of small fish are more powerful than knots you regularly know!
• If you want to practice Catch and Release, you have to know how to handle that species of fish. Carp stay a lot more alive outside water than trout. and then Catfish does much longer than the others! If you do it wrong, even if you release the fish, it may die
• Ability to choose suitable hook, rig, line, knot etc. for each species of fish, and to choose somehow what size of fish you plan to catch. Some fish have small mouthes, some have big ones (say Pikes, my favorite fish ). So you have to select the correct things.

So you see, while you can still put a hook on a line and put the line on a branch of tree and put a worm as bait on the hook and catch fish just like Pink Panther does, there are lot more to it. Every of those needs I mentioned have a huge variety to select from, and each are better for some specific fishings.

I will start to talk about them one by one in the following articles, and I hope you enjoy.
Paymaan.

Actually, I guess it is a great sport, and most of the times it gives one a relaxation, the feel of nature, and lots of knowledge of insetcs and marine life.

Believe me, it is a nice hobby, and almost everybody with access to a pond, river or dam can easily enjoy it.

Anyway, in this category I would like to talk my opinions about nature, fishes, fishing holes, different kind of lures and baits, different techniques and equipments etc.

So, you too share your opinions about this and let me know if I can give any advices etc. Just consider I am an amateur fishing enthusiast, trying to explore things on every opportunity, I am not an expert, and I too watch and read and study what experts say, to learn, on a day by day basis, my comments might not be as accurate as of those of expert fishermen.

A lot more on this later!

Paymaan.